An Asteroid Will Come Very, Very Close To Earth

An Asteroid is set on its path to fly by very close to Earth. There is a slight chance that it might even enter the Earths atmosphere. This event is set to occur on 12 October when it will come very close to Earth, exactly 27000 miles. It is one-eighth of the distance between Earth and Moon. Therefore it will make a spectacular view from the earth in the night sky.

2012 TC4

The asteroid is named 2012 TC4 and it is approximately 100 feet in diameter. If the asteroid were to hit Earth it could have been disastrous. Thankfully we will get another day to live. This close flyby is a great opportunity for scientists to observe the asteroid. NASA will collect data which will allow them to learn as much as possible about the asteroid.

Near Earth Asteroid 2012 TC4 appears as a dot at the centre of this composite of 37 individual 50-second exposures obtained with the FORS2 instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope. The asteroid is marked with a circle for a better identification. The individual images have been shifted to compensate for the motion of the asteroid so that the background stars and galaxies appear as bright trails. At magnitude 27, this is the faintest Near Earth Asteroid so far measured.

If the asteroid enters Earth’s atmosphere it will create the same effects that happen back in 2013 when an asteroid roughly the same size entered the Earths atmosphere.

Originally published at Nextworm.