Pegasus Research Consortium

http://bgr.com/2016/02/08/asteroid-2013-tx68-pass-march/

An asteroid is about to pass so close to Earth that we'll see it in the sky
By Chris Smith  on Feb 8, 2016 at 6:25 PM

Don't worry, we aren't about to go extinct like the dinosaurs. That said, a 30-meter wide asteroid will be passing Earth so close early next month that we might be able to see it in the sky, NASA has announced. And it might even hit Earth at some point in 2017

2013 TX68 will either pass as close as 18,000km (11,000 miles) of Earth, or about 14 million kilometers (9 million miles) on March 5th. The asteroid approached Earth mostly during the daytime, which made monitoring it rather difficult. This is why we have no idea how close it's going to be.

"This asteroid's orbit is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it," NASA Centre for Near Earth Object Studies manager Paul Chodas said. "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."


The object will not hit Earth this year, but there is a 1 in 250 million chance it'll come crashing down to Earth in 2017.

What would happen in such a case? Well, NASA predicts that 2013 TX68 will produce an air burst of about twice the energy of the Chelyabinsk event. No, life on Earth won't perish.

Three years ago, an asteroid half the size of 2013 TX68 impacted Earth in Chelyabinsk, Russia, releasing a shock wave that broke windows and damaged buildings, injuring some 1,500 people, as per Science Alert







News | Small Asteroid to Pass Close to Earth March 5
www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature...
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
6 days ago - Graphic indicates the cloud of possible locations asteroid 2013 TX68 will be in at the time of its closest approach to Earth during its safe flyby of ...


How close for asteroid 2013 TX68? | Science Wire | EarthSky
earthsky.org/.../asteroid-2013-tx68-uncertain-trajectory-closest-earth-ma...
5 days ago - Asteroid 2013 TX68 is a small asteroid with an uncertain trajectory that will pass ... How close will asteroid 2013 TX68 pass in early March?


100-Foot Asteroid to Buzz Earth Next Month - Space.com
www.space.com/31825-near-earth-asteroid-flyby-2013tx68.ht...
Space.com
5 days ago - An asteroid as long as a basketball court will give Earth a close shave ... The near-Earth asteroid 2013 TX68, which is thought to be about 100 ...


2013 TX68 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_TX68
Wikipedia
2013 TX68 is an Apollo asteroid and Near-Earth object discovered on October 6, 2013 by the Catalina Sky Survey, during which it was near a close approach of ...






https://www.rt.com/usa/331215-asteroid-pass-earth-moon/

Close call? Asteroid could pass Earth by 11k miles, 95% closer than the moon
Published time: 4 Feb, 2016 02:53

A recently discovered asteroid is scheduled to fly by Earth in March, but NASA can't quite tell how far away it will be when that happens. One estimate is as close as 11,000 miles, about 95 percent closer than the moon.
Tags
NASA, Space
The asteroid known as 2013 TX68, was first discovered three years ago, as its name implies, but the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey was only able to track its path for three days before it entered daytime skies, where monitoring is not possible. That short amount of time precluded scientists from getting a better understanding of what the asteroid's orbit around the sun looks like.

What is known is that the asteroid is 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter and will be in Earth's neighborhood for quite some time, but what is not known is whether that means 11,000 or 9 million miles away from our planet by next month. For comparison, the moon is 238,000 miles away.

"This asteroid's orbit is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it," Paul Chodas of NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies said in a statement.

"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," Chodas added.

The next flyby for 2013 TX68 will be in September of 2017, when it will have a one in 250,000,000 chance of Earthly impact. By comparison, the odds of winning the $1 billion Powerball jackpot last month were one in 292,000,000. NASA predicts the following flybys in 2046 and 2097 will be even less likely to end in collision.

"The possibilities of collision on any of the three future flyby dates are far too small to be of any real concern," Chodas said. "I fully expect any future observations to reduce the probability even more."

QuoteThe asteroid approached Earth mostly during the daytime, which made monitoring it rather difficult. This is why we have no idea how close it's going to be.

"This asteroid's orbit is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it,

Many people are under the impression that nothing can approach without the path being known, Maybe a good thing that people don't really realize whats out there. Most people don't think about it.

thornews
Published on Feb 11, 2016
They say we might see this asteroid in the sky. So that's neat. The crazy story on Asteroid TX 68 keeps on changing.

It was first listed at 1.3 Lunar Distances and now it is .044 LD, so that's interesting.

Also, NASA hasn't seen the asteroid in 3 years.

So I'll be watching for it on March 6th 2016.

NASA swears there is 0% danger from this thing.

God bless everyone,

http://www.sciencealert.com/next-month-an-asteroid-will-pass-so-close-to-earth-that-we-could-see-it-in-the-sky

http://www.spaceweather.com/

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ca/

@newTHOR on twitter

https://www.facebook.com/thornewsgo

Quote from: Dyna on February 09, 2016, 06:33:44 PM
Many people are under the impression that nothing can approach without the path being known, Maybe a good thing that people don't really realize whats out there. Most people don't think about it.

Well that is false :P  In 2008 the military removed access to scientists on incoming space rock data from the sateliites

We posted that action and you can read it here

Military Hush-Up: Incoming Space Rocks Now Classified
http://www.space.com/6829-military-hush-incoming-space-rocks-classified.html

The recent small Asteroid that explodes over Russia in 2013 was NOT seen by NASA or anyone else. Not only that after the fact they calculated it was twice as big as they first thought. Point is NASA did NOT see it coming

Now this one in MARCH  NASA says:

A small asteroid that two years ago flew past Earth at a comfortable distance of about 1.3 million miles (2 million kilometers) will safely fly by our planet again in a few weeks, though this time it may be much closer.

During the upcoming March 5 flyby, asteroid 2013 TX68 could fly past Earth as far out as 9 million miles (14 million kilometers) or as close as 11,000 miles (17,000 kilometers). The variation in possible closest approach distances is due to the wide range of possible trajectories for this object, since it was tracked for only a short time after discovery.

(http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/asteroid/20160202/asteroid20160202-16.jpg)

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=4888

Si in other words  NASA HAS NO IDEA where it will pass or if it may hit

Why Wasn't the Russian Meteor Detected Before it Entered the Atmosphere?

Posted on February 19, 2013 at 7:58 pm by wcooke.
This is the question that keeps cropping up, and it deserves an answer. Images are being posted showing the fragments and they look like ordinary chondrites of asteroidal origin. This material is dark, and not very reflective, which makes it difficult to spot out in outer space, especially if the object is bus or house size.

Astronomers measure brightnesses in magnitudes — the larger, more positive the number, the fainter the object is. The Sun is magnitude -27, the planet Venus -4, the star Vega 0, and the faintest star you can see is about +6. The best asteroid survey telescopes have a magnitude limit of about +24, which is about 16 million times fainter than what you can see with the unaided eye.

We can now use the latest orbit determined by Dave Clark (and yes, the meteor came roughly from the East, not from the North as stated in the initial NASA reports) and combine it with the estimated size and reflectivity to figure out when we should have seen the meteoroid in the asteroid survey telescopes. The calculations can be displayed in a graph like this one. Note that, even with very large telescopes, the meteoroid would not have been visible until a mere 2 hours (135,000 km from Earth) before impact — very little time to sound a warning.

Even if we had been looking at the right spot and the right time, there is another problem — the meteoroid would be in the daylit sky, and telescopes cannot see faint objects in the daytime.

Simply put, the meteoroid was too small for the survey telescopes and came at us out of the Sun.

(http://blogs.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/sites/193/2013/05/1037340main_graph.jpg)

https://blogs.nasa.gov/Watch_the_Skies/2013/02/19/post_1361308690869/

Don't worry, people! We have a plan for moving the Earth.

(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--IUf39rgU--/17ry3zc3k2kosjpg.jpg)

QuoteIn half a billion years, the sun will swell up like a blowfish and cause the Earth to become a parched moonscape, devoid of all but microbial life. But don't worry about it. Scientists have a plan for moving the Earth to a more habitable zone. And all it'll take is ten million years.

Moving the Earth may be the only way to save humanity, once the sun's outer layers expand. If the Earth doesn't get out of the way, its water and atmosphere will boil away into space, and then our planet will fall into the sun itself. That's not going to work for us — so sometime before then, if we want to keep using the Earth as a home base, we're going to have to move it back a bit. Working from the theory that you should never put off for a billion years what you can do today, scientists came up with a plan.

(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--0XnpzF7M--/17ry383h6wmuzjpg.jpg)
Don't worry, people! We have a plan for moving the Earth.

The good news is that the principle behind this plan has not only existed but been in use since the 1970s. It's called a gravity assist, and we've been using it to get satellites to change their trajectory, and speed up or slow down, since then. The first major use was when Voyager 2 got a boost from Jupiter to get to Saturn, then got an assist from Saturn and Uranus to make its way outward. This principle has been used to slow down satellites — Galileo was slowed down by Io so it could pass by Jupiter — and to get satellites that have mistakes in trajectory, like a geosynchronous satellite that didn't quite sync up, to the right speed and position. Gravity assists provide maximum bang for the buck, and can get satellites going at speeds far greater than any actual fuel could.

The idea is simple. Get a satellite close to a planet and the planet's gravity will grab hold of it. If the satellite is heading straight towards a planet, it will just fall right into the planet and go splat on the ground. (Or whoosh through the gas, or sizzle near the center, or crack on the ice, depending on the planet in question.) If it's moving at an angle to the planet, though it'll still get pulled by gravity, which will add to its momentum — but it'll fall around the curve of the planet, and escape back into space. It would be a little like grabbing hold of a friend as they ran by you. You might be able to pull them towards you, changing their direction and even speeding them up, but then they'd tear free and speed away from you again.

Since the satellite is gaining new direction and more momentum, the planet is also changing direction and momentum. Since the planet is so much bigger than the satellite, we won't much notice the planet's change. The plan is to increase the size of the satellite, to rope in a big asteroid, and sling it around the Earth. The asteroid would be the size of Long Island and have solar powered rockets. The asteroid's nearby flight will cause the Earth to change momentum, tugging it away from the sun and out of the danger zone.

(http://i.kinja-img.com/gawker-media/image/upload/s--epGlzLbX--/17ry3iagy621ujpg.jpg)
Don't worry, people! We have a plan for moving the Earth.

The bad news is this is neither a fast nor an easy process. It would have to be repeated no less than six thousand times. Some estimates say it could take up to a million times. In between passes, the asteroid would have to go to Jupiter or Saturn, which would gravity-assist the asteroid back to Earth. Each pass would take the asteroid between 16,000 and 10,000 miles away from the Earth. Any mistake would either lose the asteroid, or would cause the asteroid to hit Earth, killing every single thing on it, with the possible exception of microbes. Still, compared to a fall into the sun, it's gotta be the best option, right?

Not if you live on the coast. The asteroid's pull on the tides would be ten times the pull of the Moon. It would cause storms, tsunamis, and chaotic seasonal changes. We'd also have to calculate its passes, so it wouldn't change the rotation of the Earth and give us, say, a twenty-three-hour day. Even if we did move the Earth, ideally to about where Mars is right now, we'd have a different orbit around the sun, and we'd have Mars as a freaky new neighbor, which might also play hell with our own orbit. What's the possible up side? Another five billion years of habitability on Earth. Right now, it looks like we might have, at the outside, about three billion — with things getting bad at the half a billion mark. I don't know about you, but five billion more years on Earth seems like it would be worth, say, forty million years' work. Who wants to get started on those solar powered rockets?

Top Image: NASA/NOAA/GSFC/Suomi NPP/VIIRS/Norman Kuring

Galileo Image: NASA

Asteroid Image: NASA/JHUAPL

Via NASA twice, CNN, and How it Ends.

http://io9.gizmodo.com/5923828/dont-worry-people--nasa-has-a-plan-for-moving-the-earth

APOPHIS 2029 "Margin of Error"

But it will be close enough to take out satellites

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/34/Apophis_pass.svg/2000px-Apophis_pass.svg.png)

this is funny not funny.....................annual Asteroid Day .............



lots of embedded links at article

http://www.space.com/31923-beware-falling-rocks-asteroid-day-conference.html
Beware Falling Rocks: Asteroid Day Will Highlight Impact Risks

By Jesse Emspak, Space.com Contributor |  February 12, 2016 02:30pm ET
-

An international band of asteroid experts gathered Tuesday to discuss the future of asteroid research and avoidance in preparation for the second annual Asteroid Day.

On June 30, 1908, a large meteorite or comet exploded above the remote Russian countryside, flattening 770 square miles (1,990 square kilometers) of forest. Now, June 30 is Asteroid Day, part of a campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of an asteroid strike on Earth.

At a press conference Feb. 9, the organizations behind Asteroid Day announced their plans for the latest effort, inviting a panel of experts to speak about the need for more study of asteroids as well as a commitment to preventing a large body from striking the Earth. The event was held at the European Space Research and Technology Centre (ESTEC).

vid

Strikes from asteroids and comets big enough to threaten people are rare in any given year, but over time they are just about inevitable, the researchers said. For instance, on Feb. 13, 2015, a meteor fell near Chelyabinsk, Russia, and exploded some 18 miles (29 km) above the Earth's surface, the shock wave breaking windows and causing injuries to 1,500 people.

"An event like Chelyabinsk happens about once every 50 years, and we don't have a system designed to discover and track these things," Mark Boslough, a physicist at Sandia National Laboratories who is one of the founders of Asteroid Day, said at the conference.

(Even more recently, reports came in of a meteorite that may have killed a person in India, but it is unclear whether the object was actually a meteorite.) -

(http://www.space.com/images/i/000/053/221/original/asteroid-day-2016-press-event.jpg?1455299118?interpolation=lanczos-none&downsize=*:1400)

At a press conference Feb. 9, researchers gathered in Noordwijk, Netherlands, to announce Asteroid Day 2016. The European Space Agency's director of technical and quality management, Franco Ongaro, is pictured on the screen.
Credit: ESA


The organizers of Asteroid Day, among them Brian May, an astrophysicist and former guitarist for the rock band Queen, noted that concerted efforts are needed to find asteroids that might collide with the Earth, and to send spacecraft to study them.

"This is not about fearmongering," said Grig Richters, filmmaker and co-founder of Asteroid Day. "It's about being aware there is a potential threat, and understanding better where we are from."

"Bringing space technology to bear to deflect asteroids will require widespread public support," said Tom Jones, a former space shuttle astronaut who also chairs the Association of Space Explorers' Committee on Near-Earth Objects. "We only need modest resources compared to the cost of absorbing impact. Asteroid Day is to educate the public so we can work together to avoid an impact."

To that end, the scientists who came to ESTEC highlighted some of the work being done to study asteroids — to learn more about them, understand what they are made of and come up with better strategies for preventing a disaster by avoiding getting hit.

One such mission is the proposed Asteroid Impact & Deflection Assessment (AIDA). Planned for a 2020 launch, the spacecraft in this mission would approach the asteroid 65803 Didymos, a binary asteroid that consists of two bodies, one about 800 meters (2,600 feet) across and the other about 150 m (490 feet) across. The craft would orbit the larger of the two bodies, launching a 660-lb. (300 kilograms) impactor at the smaller asteroid as it makes a close approach to the Earth. (While Didymos can get within a few million miles of the planet, there's no danger the object will hit Earth.)

Researchers would measure how much the impact moves the smaller asteroid, and how the asteroid's structure and surface hold up after the strike. [100-Foot Asteroid to Buzz Earth Next Month     http://www.space.com/31825-near-earth-asteroid-flyby-2013tx68.html                   ]

Aside from sending probes to investigate what asteroids are made of, the first big task is to catalogue where the possible threats are, said Detlef Koschny, the Space Situational Awareness Near-Earth Object co-manager at the European Space Agency. ESA established a near-Earth object segment in 2008 to help Europe detect such asteroids by observing wide swathes of the sky. One part of the program, at the University of Pisa in Italy, will track where the asteroids are going; ESA is also discussing further work with other countries.

In Europe, a prototype telescope that can scan the whole sky should be in place next year, said Patrick Michel, a planetary scientist and senior researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. (He noted that the United States has its own efforts in place as well.) And citizens can help, too, he said: "You need to make sure you observe an object again, to make sure we don't lose it again. Amateur astronomers play an important role."

Detection is so important because the further out you find an asteroid, the easier it is to move it, the researchers said. The nuclear bomb approach, made famous by the movie "Armageddon" (and the 1979 film "Meteor") would only be worth doing if there is very little warning, Boslough said, "and we wouldn't be able to test it in space."

The technology, he said, isn't ready yet in any case.

Famed science communicator Bill Nye was also a panelist, and said since humans have the capacity to alter asteroid paths if necessary, it behooves humanity to do it. "We've no evidence the dinosaurs had a space program," he said, "and it cost them."

You can follow Space.com on Twitter @Spacedotcom. We're also on Facebook & Google+. Original article on Space.com.







Editor's Recommendations
?
'Bigger Than Chelyabinsk' Asteroid To Skim By Earth | Orbit Animation   

Asteroids Galore! 10,000th Near-Earth Object Discovered 

Asteroid Apophis Gives a Earth Close Shave in 2029 (Infographic)

Minimum Distance (au)
0.000207036775709591
2016-Mar-08 00:06   
Is that as scary as it looks?
http://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/sbdb.cgi?sstr=2013%20TX68;orb=1;old=0;cov=0;log=0;cad=1#cad

well actually it's even scarier...IF you want to play what if


uncertain orbit...what if they have the day wrong they're now saying march 7th


total solar eclipse on march 9  - what if some can see it coming

there's just something about this eclipse that I can't put my finger on but it's been bugging me for awhile now

what if communication goes down
maybe it will just take out some satellites  :o
get the old cb's out     ;D       see ya on the back side 10-4  oh maybe that's flip side..dang ::)
hey good buddy   any truckers out there ? ;)



..........................

http://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/Astronomers-Not-Sure-How-Close-Asteroid-Will-Come-to-Earth--369749361.html

vid at link

He estimates the asteroid to be 80 to 170 feet in length, and will pass by the planet sometime between 5:30 a.m. and 4:06 p.m. PST on March 7.

"The asteroid is not going to hit us. There's no concern about that. It will miss us. It's just a matter of by how much," McKeegan.

..................................


March 8, 2016 – March 9, 2016 — Total Solar Eclipse
The total solar eclipse will be visible from parts of Indonesia including Sumatra, Borneo, and Sulawesi, and from locations in the Pacific Ocean.

Observers in northern and eastern Australia, in South Asia, and in East Asia will be able to see a partial eclipse.

The eclipse will begin at 23:19 UTC on March 8, 2016, and its maximum point will take place at 01:59 UTC on March 9, 2016. Totality will last for 4 minutes and 9 seconds.

Phenomena to look for during totality ?
http://www.timeanddate.com/eclipse/solar/2016-march-9

Quote from: Dyna on February 24, 2016, 08:30:20 PM
Minimum Distance (au)
0.000207036775709591
2016-Mar-08 00:06   
Is that as scary as it looks?

Let me see...
149597870700*0.000207036775709591=30972260.8 metres=30972.26km

I'm not scared. :)

Also, with that size, even if it hits, it's going to affect just a small area.

armap check your math.
i think your decimal is off or yall may do it different

shouldnt it be 3 km?

my bad its the way the screen looked.you are right

Quote from: ArMaP on February 24, 2016, 11:58:36 PM
Let me see...
149597870700*0.000207036775709591=30972260.8 metres=30972.26km

I'm not scared. :)
Also, with that size, even if it hits, it's going to affect just a small area.

I don't understand how it works but 0.000207036775709591AU min distance sounds like nearly no percent of an AU from us? what did you divide by?

I'm not scared they seem to be missing West Coast now days :)

Quote from: Dyna on February 25, 2016, 12:40:26 AM
I don't understand how it works but 0.000207036775709591AU min distance sounds like nearly no percent of an AU from us? what did you divide by?

0.02% of the distance between Earth and the Sun (the AU) is still a big distance. :)

Quote from: ArMaP on February 25, 2016, 09:25:21 AM
0.02% of the distance between Earth and the Sun (the AU) is still a big distance. :)

I see what you did I guess I missed my Ginko.Didn't even not the"metres".
Ah unless there is more stuff traveling with it, but since it is not real big I am not worried. :)

Has the twin comets been mentioned I was just reading this?

Comet P/2016 BA14 (Pan-STARRS) will safely pass Earth on March 22,2016, passing even closer than comet 252P. Comet P/2016 BA14 flyby will be at just 2,199,933 miles (3.5 million km) or about 9 lunar distances, which is very close for a comet. In fact, this comet – P/2016 BA14 – will set a record as the third-closest known comet to pass our planet in recorded history.

A pair of comets showing very similar orbits are approaching Earth. While both will pass at a safe distance, one of them will have a record-breakingly close flyby. Comet 252P/LINEAR 12 was already known to be passing by Earth on March 21, 2016 at a distance of 3,290,000 miles (5.3 million km). This is about 14 times the Earth-Moon distance, and, taken by itself, sets no record.

Neat website
http://www.hohmanntransfer.com/

So many fireballs lately!
Meteor 'bright flash' seen in skies over Scotland
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-35689551

wow thanks Dyna....

isn't amazing how  the media is telling us about countries getting ready to shoot them down..
kinda makes ya wonder just what they know about it and aren't sharing..
guess we'll need more than little alum hats.. ::)

http://www.space.com/32113-asteroid-2013-tx68-earth-flyby-uncertainty.html


By Mike Wall, Space.com Senior Writer |  March 2, 2016 07:00am ET









This graphic depicts the orbit of asteroid 2013 TX68, which will fly by Earth on March 8, 2016. The asteroid poses no threat to Earth during this flyby or in the foreseeable future. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech



A decent-size asteroid will zoom past Earth next week, but astronomers aren't sure exactly when the flyby will happen, or just how close the space rock is going to get.

The latest observations suggest that the 100-foot-wide (30 meters) near-Earth asteroid 2013 TX68 will come within about 3 million miles (5 million kilometers) of Earth's surface on March 8, NASA researchers said.
But it's also possible that the space rock will get much, much closer — 15,000 miles (24,000 km) or so, which is inside the planet's ring of geostationary satellites.

Despite all of the uncertainty — researchers originally thought the flyby was going to happen on Saturday (March 5) — there is nothing to fear from 2013 TX68, scientists said. The space rock has no chance of hitting Earth on this pass, or on any future close approaches over the next century.

"There is no concern whatsoever regarding this asteroid — unless you were interested in seeing it with a telescope," Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said in a statement.

"Prospects for observing this asteroid, which were not very good to begin with, are now even worse because the asteroid is likely to be farther away, and therefore dimmer than previously believed," Chodas added.

- See more at: http://www.space.com/32113-asteroid-2013-tx68-earth-flyby-uncertainty.html#sthash.KeYsgVRp.dpuf

http://earthsky.org/space/asteroid-2013-tx68-uncertain-trajectory-closest-earth-mar-5-2016

UPDATE MARCH 7, 2016. Asteroid 2013 TX68 safely passed by Earth on Monday morning. According to the Minor Planet Center, the space rock's closest approach occurred on March 7 at 13:42 UTC (8:42 ET) at a distance of 2,542,960 miles (4,092,497 km) from Earth, just a bit closer than the nominal 3 million miles previously estimated. The space rock approached our planet a few hours earlier than expected. The previous estimate indicated asteroid 2013 TX68 was due to pass by Earth around March 7 at 7:06 pm ET (March 8 at 00:06 UTC).

Translate to your time zone.

The flyby distance was about 10.64 times the Earth-moon distance, and the next closest approach dates predictions may change again, as the asteroid's orbit is better understood and more precisely defined using new observations.

Source: https://www.facebook.com/MinorPlanetCenter

Read more about the uncertainties leading up to this object's closest sweep past Earth today ... below.

In the days leading up to this pass by 2013 TX68, astronomers were highly uncertain as to the asteroid's closest distance to us. They knew it would not strike Earth, but – prior to today's pass – the most recent estimate indicated a nominal or most probable distance of 3,104,591 miles (4,996,355 km).

However, the space rock might have passed as closely as 19,000 miles (30,000 km) or as far as 10,722,990 miles (17,256,980 km).

Astronomers at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said the variation in possible nearest distances for this asteroid was due to the wide range of possible trajectories for this object, which was tracked for only a short time after its discovery in 2013.

In the days leading up to its closest approach to us, Marco Micheli of the European Space Agency's NEO Coordination Centre (NEOCC/SpaceDys) in Frascati, Italy, realized that this object – which was observed only briefly in 2013 before going into a region of the sky lit by the sun's glare – was visible on some images a few days before it was officially detected on October 6, 2013. The new images let scientists roughly refine its trajectory, but just a bit.

Asteroid 2013 TX68 is travelling at a speed of 34,279 miles per hour (55,166 km/h).

According to the orbit predictions during the past two weeks, the asteroid may pass by our planet again on September 18, 2056. However, the next closest approach dates predictions will change again, now that it has swept past us.

Why has there been so much uncertainty about this object?

It's the scenario that astronomers have always cautioned us about ... the fact that asteroid 2013 TX68 approached Earth from the sun's direction. In late February, the space rock was still approaching Earth from this direction, although the asteroid was actually at a greater distance from us than our star.

In other words, for most of the past few weeks, it has been in the daytime sky, where astronomers could not observe it.

The uncertainty of the exact date of closest approach, as well as the precise orbit, was due to the fact that asteroid 2013 TX68 was just observed during 10 days (including the newly found pre-discovery images). That is still a short time to define an orbit precisely.

On February 11, 2016, NASA removed asteroid 2013 TX68 from a list of space rocks with possibilities of future impact with Earth over the next 100 years.

Preliminary estimates of the size of asteroid 2013 TX68 suggest the space rock has a diameter of 30 meters (98 ft), which is about twice the size of the Chelyabinsk meteor that entered over Russian skies in February, 2013.

If a space rock of this size were to enter our atmosphere, it would produce a shock wave at least twice as intense as that of the Chelyabinsk meteor, which broke windows in six Russian cities – caused more than 1,500 people to seek medical care, mostly due to cuts from flying glass – and did other damage to thousands of buildings.

(http://en.es-static.us/upl/2016/02/asteroid-2013-TX68-orbit1-e1456767844352.jpg)

Orbit of asteroid 2013 TX68. The small arrow depicts the direction of the space rock, showing the asteroid is coming approximately from the sun's direction, as seen from the perspective of Earth. Image via NASA/JPL-Caltech.


Bottom line: Astronomers now know that asteroid 2013 TX68 safely passed by Earth on Monday morning, March 7, 2016. According to the Minor Planet Center, the space rock's closest approach occurred on at 13:42 UTC (8:42 ET) at a distance of 2,542,960 miles (4,092,497 km) from Earth.