The asteroid, which is 140 meters (460 feet) in diameter, will get no closer to Earth than 890, 000 kilometers (553, 000 miles), or more than twice the distance to the moon, NASA said.
But the size of the Earth is a few percent of the distance to the moon, which translates to about a 7% stronger gravitational pull on the near side of the Earth than the far side.
"For the May eclipse, the moon will be at the furthest distance from Earth that it ever achieves -- meaning that it will block the smallest possible portion of the sun, and leave the largest possible bright ring around the outside, " the agency said on its website.