Categories: AsteroidsNASA

NASA: Less Than 1% Chance That Asteroid 2013 TV135 Will Hit Earth In 2032

We’ll skip straight to the good news: NASA says Earth is likely safe from Asteroid 2013 TV135. Calculations put the newly discovered asteroid’s chances of hitting the planet in 2032 at incredibly small — 1 in 63,000 — despite some alarmist news reports.

“To put it another way, that puts the current probability of no impact in 2032 at about 99.998 percent,” stated Don Yeomans, manager of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office.

“This is a relatively new discovery. With more observations, I fully expect we will be able to significantly reduce, or rule out entirely, any impact probability for the foreseeable future.”

Asteroid 2013 TV135 in a series of images snapped by amateur astronomer Peter Lake.

The asteroid was first spotted on Oct. 8 by scientists at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Ukraine. It’s 1,300 meters (400 feet) in diameter and cycles in an orbit that goes three-quarters of the way out to Jupiter, and then back again towards its closest approach near Earth’s orbit.

The asteroid came within 4.2 million miles (6.7 million kilometers) of Earth on Sept. 16. Amateur astronomer Peter Lake uploaded a video (which you can see above) based on a few pictures he took Oct. 17-18.

“Its important to remember that new asteroids (this one has only 9 days of arc) usually don’t stay on the Torino Scale (the risk register) for long, as further data updates increase the precision of the orbit, and usually quickly remove them as potential impactors,” Lake added in a blog post.

There are many, many international efforts to watch asteroid paths and disseminate the information to the public. One of them is NASA’s Asteroid Watch website, where you can get the latest information on nearby space rocks.

Elizabeth Howell

Elizabeth Howell is the senior writer at Universe Today. She also works for Space.com, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience, among others. Career highlights include watching three shuttle launches, and going on a two-week simulated Mars expedition in rural Utah. You can follow her on Twitter @howellspace or contact her at her website.

Recent Posts

Measuring Exoplanetary Magnetospheres with the Square Kilometer Array

Life on Earth would not be possible without food, water, light, a breathable atmosphere and…

12 seconds ago

Psyche is Still Sending Data Home at Broadband Speeds

When I heard about this I felt an amused twinge of envy. Over the last…

13 hours ago

Uh oh. Hubble's Having Gyro Problems Again

The Hubble Space Telescope has gone through its share of gyroscopes in its 34-year history…

19 hours ago

Astronomers Will Get Gravitational Wave Alerts Within 30 Seconds

Any event in the cosmos generates gravitational waves, the bigger the event, the more disturbance.…

3 days ago

Next Generation Ion Engines Will Be Extremely Powerful

During the Space Race, scientists in both the United States and the Soviet Union investigated…

3 days ago

Neutron Stars Could be Capturing Primordial Black Holes

The Milky Way has a missing pulsar problem in its core. Astronomers have tried to…

3 days ago