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Meet God’s possible instrument of death, Asteroid 2013 TX68. It was discovered by NASA in 2013 (hence the name), when it passed by Earth a comfortable 1.3 million miles away.
It’s set to come back on March 5th, this time with a much tighter window. Or much further away.
The 100-foot wide asteroid could pass Earth at a distance of a mere 11,000 miles. From there, Gizmodo points out that observers could see that sucker with a telescope.
Its trajectory for this flyby is greatly in flux, though. The space rock also could swing past a breezy 9 million miles from us. Lame. Here’s NASA’s chart of probabilities for the flyby.
NASA
Regardless, the space agency is 100 percent confident that the asteroid will not hit us on this flyby
HOWEVER.
It will come back next year and, in that pass, there is a one in 250,000,000 chance it could hit Earth.
So, you might die! If it did collide with us, it would pack a wallop, says NASA.
Asteroid 2013 TX68 is estimated to be about 100 feet (30 meters) in diameter. By comparison, the asteroid that broke up in the atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia, three years ago was approximately 65 feet (20 meters) wide. If an asteroid the size of 2013 TX68 were to enter Earth’s atmosphere, it would likely produce an air burst with about twice the energy of the Chelyabinsk event.
That, if you remember, was diesel, and caused 1,500 non-fatal injuries in god knows where Russia. If 2013 TX68 hits your neighborhood, who knows?
But it’s not just TX68 you need to worry about, my dudes. There are others out there.
[H/T Gizmodo]