On March 5, a small asteroid will safely pass Earth, but astronomers don’t yet know how close it’ll be.
The asteroid — designated 2013 TX68 — has passed us once before, in 2014. At that time it was two million km from Earth.
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Now the asteroid is returning, but because it has only been observed for a short time, just how close — or far — it will be isn’t precisely known.
NASA tracks potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA) and near-Earth objects (NEO) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Scientists have determined that 2013 TX68 could pass within 14 million km or 17,000 km. There is no chance that it will collide with Earth during this pass.
But there is an “extremely remote chance” that it could hit Earth on Sept. 28, 2017. How remote? It’s no more than a 1 in 250 million chance. Later passes — in 2046 and 2097 have even less of a chance.
The March 5 flyby will help astronomers more accurately pinpoint its orbit.
“This asteroid’s orbit is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it,” said Paul Chodas, manager of NASA’s Center for NEO Studies. “There is a chance that the asteroid will be picked up by our asteroid search telescopes when it safely flies past us next month, providing us with data to more precisely define its orbit around the sun.”
Asteroid 2013 TX68 is about 30 metres in diameter. The asteroid that caused an airburst in Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013, which injured more than 1,000 people was about 20 metres wide.
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