NASA on ALERT: Asteroid Heads for Closest-Ever Predicted Approach to Earth

The flyby of asteroid 2013 TX68 is the closest ever predicted Earth approach for an object this large. The 150 feet (45 meters) rock could pass 11,000 miles (17,000km) from Earth on March 5th which is 21 times closer to our planet than the moon, although NASA admits it might also pass nine million miles away as the asteroid’s orbit is highly uncertain (condition code 7) and the distance of its pass is not precisely known at this time experts say.

However, if the asteroid passes at its closest possible distance of just 11,000 miles (17,000 km), the flyby will be an exceedingly close one and If that were the case, the asteroid would come even closer than orbiting communications satellites.

Asteroid 2013 TX68 has an estimated mass of about 130,000 metric tons. The space rock is traveling at about 32,211 miles per hour (51,839 kilometers per hour), relative to Earth.

According to NASA, if an asteroid of a size similar to that of 2013 TX68 were to impact Earth, it would release approximately 2.5 megatons of energy in the atmosphere and would be expected to cause regional devastation.

A comparison to the impact potential of an asteroid the size of 2013 TX68 could be made to the impact of a near-Earth object that occurred in 1908 in Tuguska, Siberia.

Known in the asteroid community as the "Tunguska Event," this impact of an asteroid just slightly smaller than 2013 TX68 (approximately 100 – 130 feet/30-40 meters across) is believed to have flattened about 825 square miles (2200 square kilometers) of forest in and around the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in what is now Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia.

The asteroid was discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey on Oct. 6, 2013, as it approached Earth on the nighttime 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,

Although scientists cannot predict its precise orbit around the sun, they say that it cannot impact Earth during its flyby next month.

Furthermore, it seems cosmic rays are rising rapidly and the Earth is tilting North, which is a physical Pole Shift combined with a magnetic polar shift. In the second video BPEarthWatch explains these developments as well as an analysis of Asteroid 2013 TX68 based on the information given by ESA instead of NASA.