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At 1,200 feet wide, it could have caused an explosion measured in megatons and would have wiped out a city if it were to hit Earth.

Just days ago, a huge asteroid nicknamed 'the Beast' passed less than a million miles from us.

Today, Nasa revealed it captured these stunning images as it passed by - thankfully at a safe distance.

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Behold the beast: Nasa scientists used Earth-based radar to produce these images of the asteroid designated '2014 HQ124' but known as the Beast as it passed by Earth on June 8, 2014.

Captured on June 8, 2014, the new views of the object designated '2014 HQ124' are some of the most detailed radar images of a near-Earth asteroid ever obtained.

The radar observations were led by scientists Marina Brozovic and Lance Benner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California.

The JPL researchers worked closely with Michael Nolan, Patrick Taylor, Ellen Howell and Alessondra Springmann at Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico to plan and execute the observations.

According to Benner, 2014 HQ124 appears to be an elongated, irregular object that is at least 1,200 feet (370 meters) wide on its long axis.

'This may be a double object, or 'contact binary,' consisting of two objects that form a single asteroid with a lobed shape,' he said.

The images reveal a wealth of other features, including a puzzling pointy hill near the object's middle, on top as seen in the images.

The 21 radar images were taken over a span of four-and-a-half hours.

During that interval, the asteroid rotated a few degrees per frame, suggesting its rotation period is slightly less than 24 hours.

At its closest approach to Earth on June 8, the asteroid came within 776,000 miles (1.25 million kilometers), or slightly more than three times the distance to the moon. Scientists began observations of 2014 HQ124 shortly after the closest approach, when the asteroid was between about 864,000 miles and 902,000 miles (1.39 million kilometers and 1.45 million kilometers) from Earth.

Each image in the collage and movie represents 10 minutes of data.

The new views show features as small as about 12 feet (3.75 meters) wide.

 

NASA releases images of huge asteroid that passed by Earth

This is the highest resolution currently possible using scientific radar antennas to produce images.

Such sharp views for this asteroid were made possible by linking together two giant radio telescopes to enhance their capabilities.

To obtain the new views, researchers paired the 230-foot (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, with two other radio telescopes, one at a time.

'By itself, the Goldstone antenna can obtain images that show features as small as the width of a traffic lane on the highway," said Benner.

'With Arecibo now able to receive our highest-resolution Goldstone signals, we can create a single system that improves the overall quality of the images.'

The first five images in the new sequence -- the top row in the collage -- represent the data collected by Arecibo, and are 30 times brighter than what Goldstone can produce observing on its own.

The newfound asteroid will safely pass Earth on June 8 from a distance of about 777,000 miles (1.25 million kilometers), more than three times farther away than our moon. Designated 2014 HQ124, the asteroid was discovered April 23, 2014, by NASA's NEOWISE mission, a space telescope adapted for scouting the skies for asteroids and comets. The telescope sees infrared light, which allows it to pick up the infrared glow of asteroids and obtain better estimates of their true sizes.

It will, however, pass within a million miles on Sunday - equivalent to 3.2 lunar distances or about 716,500 miles.

'There is zero chance of an impact,' said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

'In fact, it's fairly common for asteroids to pass near Earth.

'You'd expect an object about the size of 2014 HQ124 to pass this close every few years.'

Astronomers say their main concern is that The Beast, or Asteroid 2014 HQ124 was only detected on April 23 before its nearest approach to the Earth despite space surveillance systems scanning outer space for asteroids and other threats.

'HQ124 is at least 10 times bigger, and possibly 20 times, than the asteroid that injured a thousand people last year in Chelyabinsk, Siberia,' Slooh space telescope astronomer Bob Berman said.

'If it were [to] impact us, the energy released would be measured not in kilotons like the atomic bombs that ended World War II, but in H-bomb type megatons.'

Berman said that object was 'maybe the size of a movie theatre,' while NASA compared its size to a bus.

'It's not a super-large one. You call it The Beast, but there are much bigger ones,'

American physicist Mark Boslough, an expert on planetary impacts, told Slooh.com during the webcast. 'We've discovered most of the ones greater than a kilometre.'

Experts say the asteroid would wipe out an entire city and be similar to a nuclear warhead detonating if Earth were to be hit

Boslough said that a planetary strike with an object the size of HQ124 would have a catastrophic effect.

'It's moving at a relative speed of 14 kilometres per second.

'But if it were headed toward us, gravity would speed it up and it would hit the Earth with a speed of 18 kilometres a second,' he said.

Based on its size, and assuming it would still be a solid rock at the time of impact, it would lead to an explosion of about 2,000 megatonnes, enough to wipe out an entire metropolitan area,' Boslough said.

The Beast was discovered by the NASA Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer.

It is tearing through space at 31,000 miles per hour or 50,400 kilometers per hour.

The Beast has been classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid.