A small asteroid that will pass relatively close to the Earth early next month poses no threat, but could present a tremendous opportunity for astronomy enthusiasts to observe the object from the ground as it zooms to within 11,000 miles (17,000 km) of the planet, NASA has revealed.
In a statement issued recently, the US space agency said that asteroid 2013 TX68, which passed to within 1.3 million miles (2 million km) of Earth two years ago, will be even closer this March 5, provided that current calculations of the object’s trajectories are correct.
However, they noted that the object has only been tracked for a short time, and that the variation in possible closest approach distances is sizable. Either way, the asteroid is extremely unlikely to pose any threat, but if it comes close enough, stargazers might be able to catch a glimpse.
Asteroid 2013 TX68 is estimated to be about 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter – larger than the 65 foot (20 meter) wide asteroid that broke up in the atmosphere over Russia’s Ural Mountains in 2013. Were it to enter Earth’s atmosphere, it would likely produce an atmospheric explosion twice the energy of the incident two years ago, NASA said.
Little chance that the object will hit Earth – this time around
Fortunately, that isn’t anything that humanity needs to worry about – yet. However, scientists at the agency’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California report that there is a remote chance the object could hit Earth in the future.
In fact, when it next passes by the Earth on September 28, 2017, CNEOS scientists believe there’s a 1-in-250 million chance it could crash into the planet’s surface. Subsequent flybys in 2046 and 2097 have even lower impact probabilities, meaning that in all likelihood, mankind has nothing to fear from this particular asteroid.
“The possibilities of collision on any of the three future flyby dates are far too small to be of any real concern,” said CNEOS manager Paul Chodas explained, adding that he expected “any future observations to reduce the probability even more” – which is a good thing, given its size.
Chodas added that asteroid 2013 TX68’s orbit “is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it. There is a chance that the asteroid will be picked up by our asteroid search telescopes when it safely flies past us next month,” which could provide them with enough data to “more precisely define its orbit around the sun.”
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Feature Image: Thinkstock
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