Experts from the International Space Agency (NASA) warn about the approach of the asteroid 2013 TX68 to Earth, which is 10 meters larger than the famous Chelyabinsk meteorite that burned up in the atmosphere of our planet on February 15, 2013.
Experts from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory ask you not to panic and say that the asteroid will fly at a safe distance from the planet - 17 thousand km. The TX68 will fly closest to the Earth's surface on March 5, 2016. It is known that this asteroid already approached the Earth 2 years ago, but flew 2 million km from our planet.
According to experts, now the asteroid is an almost complete copy of the Chelyabinsk meteorite, but 10 m larger than it. The celestial body is about 30 m in diameter. NASA does not exclude that the "Chelyabinsk twin" may enter the Earth's atmosphere, where it will necessarily explode. The power of this explosion, according to astrophysicists, will be twice as large as when the Chelyabinsk meteorite exploded.
Recall that the fall of a meteorite in the Chelyabinsk region was accompanied by a series of atmospheric explosions. Fragments of a meteorite were later found. The largest of them, with a total weight of 654 kg, was raised on October 16, 2013 from the bottom of Lake Chebarkul.