An asteroid will be passing by close to earth on March 5 this year. One report said that it may come close enough to the earth that people can see it using their own telescopes.
The public is advised not to worry, as the chance for the asteroid to hit the earth is very slim. NASA scientists working at the Center for NEO Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena have assured that this will not happen. However, it will pass by our planet close enough for astronomy lovers to catch a glimpse of it.
Scientists have given it a name - 2013 TX68. It was tagged 2013 as it was at that year that the asteroid passed by our planet the first time. This asteroid has been locked in its own orbit around our sun, explaning its return this year. But this time around, it will streak by much closer than it did two years ago.
According to NASA, when it whizzes by on March 5, asteroid 2013 TX68 could be as far as 9,000,000 miles (14 million kilometers) away or as close as 11,000 miles (17,000 kilometers) from the planet. Its huge distance variation is due to the wide range of probable trajectories owing to the short time of available tracking from the day it was discovered.
The size of the asteroid is approximately 100 feet in diameter, or about the size of an airplane. Its next visit to earth is probably around Sept. 28, 2017. NASA predicts that it has a chance of hitting us when that time comes.
However, that chance is really very slim - about 1 in 250 million. That's the same odds as being killed by a coconut falling from its tree.
"The possibilities of collision on any of the three future flyby dates are far too small to be of any real concern," Paul Chodas said, CNEOS manager. "I fully expect any future observations to reduce the probability even more," he added.
