A small asteroid will pass by close to Earth on March 5 at a distance of 9 million miles (14 million km) to about 11,000 miles (17,000 km).
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Nasa is monitoring a 100-foot (30-meter) wide asteroid that could make a close pass by Earth next month but has no chance of hitting it, the United States space agency said on Friday. But in 2017, the next flyby, the asteroid has a 1-in-250 million chances of colliding with the planet and smaller chances when it flies by in 246 and 2097.
“This asteroid’s orbit is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it”, said Paul Chodas, manager of CNEOS. When the asteroid was discovered on October 6, 2013, NASA didn’t have enough time to track its path, and was only able to predict when it would come back. But they have identified an extremely remote chance that this small asteroid could impact on Sep.
However the proximity of the asteroid to earth remains a mystery. That blast shattered glass and destroyed buildings, leaving more than 1,000 injured.
Experts believe that if an object as big as asteroid 2013 TX68 were to penetrate the Earth’s atmosphere, it would generate an air burst that is twice as powerful as the one produced during the meteor crash in Chelyabinsk.
Picture of the asteroid that exploded over Cherlyabinsk, Russia on Feb 15, 2013.
COLLISION? The new asteroid could come a little too close for comfort. As such, much the harm it caused was the result of panic and the townspeople being unprepared.
The Planetary Defence Coordination Office will synchronise U.S. efforts to deal with threatening near-Earth objects and will supervise all NASA-funded projects find and characterise asteroids and comets that visit Earth’s neighbourhood. Until now, NASA scientists haven’t reached a consensus on the distance because there are far too many probable trajectories for the asteroid. The asteroid will pass by the vicinity of the Earth on the 5th of March, 2016. In the vast majority of these cases, the asteroids will be well outside of the Moon’s orbit. A possible asteroid flyby in March has enthusiasts on their toes.
In the meantime, rest easy.
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We will find out very soon, but scientists are not concerned.
