It is claimed by scientists that a larger asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs and that there is one out there that could wipe out civilization as we know it. Since that became common knowledge, astronomers have kept a closer watch on the skies. They do a lot of calculating and observing. In this case early on it appeared to be headed for a really close pass and now it is moved out away. Hope they did not drop a decimal somewhere along the line. Oh, and it has been by before! View the video to see a possible defense.
Phew! Nasa says asteroid 203 TX68 will pass three MILLION miles from Earth on March 8th (but admits there’s a one in 250 million chance it could hit us in 2017)
- Nasa says the asteroid, dubbed 2013 TX68, poses no threat to Earth
- Latest prediction shows it will fly by 3m miles (5m km) from our planet
- Small chance it could pass 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers) above Earth
- One in 250 million chance it will hit Earth on september 28, 2017
A 100ft-wide asteroid, first spotted when it flew by Earth two years ago, is set to make its return on March 8th.
Nasa’s initial estimate showed the whale-sized space rock may skim past Earth at just 11,000 miles (17,000 km), which is around 21 times closer to Earth than the moon – but Nasa admitted this estimate may be widely inaccurate, and the asteroid may also pass Earth as far out as 9 million miles (14 million km).
Now a new prediction for 2013 TX68 is that it will fly by roughly 3 million miles (5 million kilometers) from our planet.
‘Additional observations of asteroid 2013 TX68 have been obtained, refining its orbital path and moving the date of the asteroid’s Earth flyby from March 5 to March 8,’ Nasa said.
The observations, from archived images provided by the Nasa-funded Pan-STARRS asteroid survey, enabled scientists at Nasa’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, to refine their earlier flyby and distance predictions, reconfirming that the asteroid poses no threat to Earth.
‘We already knew this asteroid, 2013 TX68, would safely fly past Earth in early March, but this additional data allow us to get a better handle on its orbital path,’ said Paul Chodas, manager of CNEOS. ‘
The data indicate that this small asteroid will probably pass much farther away from Earth than previously thought.’
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