An asteroid as big as the Egyptian pyramids is zooming towards Earth and will squeeze past us on Friday - if it doesn't smash on to our home planet's surface. Named 2019 WR3, NASA expects the space rock to make a "close approach" to Earth later this week. The space agency has classified the asteroid as a "near-Earth object (NEO)" which means its orbit brings it very close - in cosmic terms - to Earth. The asteroid was first spotted late last week. NASA has now observed the asteroid some 74 times to better get a sense of its size and trajectory. WR3 is believed to have a diameter of between 76m to 170m. It is expected that on December 6, the asteroid will pass within 5.44 million km of Earth at speeds of 27,036 km/hr. The warning comes as the European Space Agency approves a $471 million mission called Hera to examine whether a rogue asteroid on its way to Earth could be deflected out of the way. Working with NASA, the ESA will send a pair of spacecraft to a double-asteroid system