A SMALL asteroid will fly-by Earth again on March 5, according to scientists at NASA’s Near Earth Objects (NEOs) Studies unit in Pasadena, California.

The upcoming asteroid flew past Earth at a comfortable distance two years ago, but this fly-by could be much closer with estimates ranging from 14 million to a mere 17,000 kilometres.

Although NASA has said there is no possibility the asteroid will hit Earth in March, they have identified a remote chance that Asteroid 2013 TX68 could impact on September 28, 2017.

However, the odds are no more than 1-250 million. Fly-bys in 2046 and 2097 have an even lower probability of impact.

“The possibilities of collision on any of the three future fly-by dates are far too small to be of any real concern,” said Paul Chodas, manager of CNEOS. “I fully expect any future observations to reduce the probability even more.”

NASA recently launched a new planetary defence office that is dedicated to protecting the Earth from dangerous asteroids.

The Planetary Defence Coordination Office will synchronise US efforts to deal with threatening near-Earth objects and will supervise all NASA-funded projects to find and characterise asteroids and comets that visit Earth’s neighbourhood.

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 over Russia three years ago. The 20 metre asteroid broke up over the city of Chelyabink injuring 1200 people.

Asteroid 2013 TX68 was discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey on October 6, 2013, as it approached Earth on the night-time side. After three days of tracking, the asteroid passed into the daytime sky and could no longer be observed.

Because it was not tracked for very long, scientists cannot predict its precise orbit around the sun, but they do know that it cannot impact Earth during its fly-by next month.

“This asteroid’s orbit is quite uncertain, and it will be hard to predict where to look for it,” said Chodas. “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.”

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