We can all breathe again as the 100-foot wide asteroid TX68 has whizzed by the Earth and as far as i can tell has avoided a collision with our fair planet.
Scientists stated that the asteroid, called 2013 TX68, was on course to pass between 11,000 miles and 9 million miles and it's distance has been put at 2.5 million miles which is approximately double the distance it zipped by our ball of rock two years ago.
We may have escaped this time but Professor Brian Cox said that we are at risk of being wiped out by asteroids and that: 'There is an asteroid with our name on it and it will hit us'.
The Earth did have a near-miss recently when 2014 EC came within 38,300 miles of us this month but we didn't even realise it was there until it had gone by.
NASA is currently tracking 1,400 'potentially hazardous asteroids' and predicting their future approaches and impact probabilities in a massive game of cosmic roulette which the dinosaurs found has devastating consequences if you lose.
2 comments:
A bit scary that we are monitoring these things but this one slipped through undetected.
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