Close encounter: asteroid the size of a house set for near miss with Earth

Space rock 2012 TC4 expected to zoom by harmlessly, coming within 27,300 miles - an eighth of the distance from the Earth to the Moon

A house-sized asteroid will shave past our planet on 12 October, far inside the Moon's orbit but without posing any threat, astronomers have said.

The space rock will zoom by harmlessly at a distance of about 27,300 miles (44,000km ) - an eighth of the distance from the Earth to the Moon, according to the European Space Agency. It is outside the roughly 36,000km orbit of geostationary satellites.