Friday, October 18, 2013

Newly Discovered Asteroid Missed Earth but will Return in 2032

Recently, an asteroid made a close pass (in astronomical terms) by Earth. It was newly discovered and it is probable that it will return in 2032, although there is just a really small chance that it will crash the Earth or even create an impact crater according to NASA. It is said that it is a one in 63,000 chance that it will hit Earth.

The asteroid is known as 2013 TV135. It passed 4.2 million miles or 6.7 million km from Earth this past Wednesday according to the U.S. Space Agency.

Astronomers from the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Ukraine discovered it on October 8th.
Don Yeomans who is the manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, California said "To put it another way, that puts the current probability of no impact in 2032 at about 99.998 percent."

More information about the asteroid is being presented next week.

They believe the asteroid is 1,300 feet in size.

The "Spaceguard" or the Near-Earth Object Observation Program tracks asteroids and comets that go by Earth to see if any could cause harm to be able to find a solution and avoid a natural catastrophe.

This asteroid is one of the 10,332 near-Earth objects that have been identified so far.

MLA Citation:
"Newly Discovered Asteroid Missed Earth but Will Return in 2032." Yahoo! News. Yahoo!, 29 Apr.
0000. Web. 18 Oct. 2013. http://news.yahoo.com/newly-discovered-asteroid-missed-earth- return-2032-193217461.html.

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