An animated tracker from the website EarthSky shows that as the asteroid
safely passes by Earth, it will shoot slightly upwards.
However, coming in from the opposite direction is the moon and 2012 TC4
and our lunar satellite could come perilously close to crashing if the Earth
exerts more of a tug on the asteroid than experts anticipate.
But scientists are confident
that the asteroid which is believe to be between 10 and 30 metres in size poses
no threat to the moon or life on Earth.
However, NASA will use the
extremely close fly by to gather valuable data on the space rock.
Michael Kelley, program
scientist and NASA Headquarters lead for the TC4 observation campaign, said:
“Scientists have always appreciated knowing when an asteroid will make a close
approach to and safely pass the Earth because they can make preparations to
collect data to characterise and learn as much as possible about it.
“This time we are adding in
another layer of effort, using this asteroid flyby to test the worldwide
asteroid detection and tracking network, assessing our capability to work
together in response to finding a potential real asteroid threat.”
At between 10 and 30 metres
in size, it is believed to be bigger than the Chelyabinsk meteor which exploded
above Russia, damaging thousands of buildings and injuring 1,500 people in
2013.