© AFP 2016/HO/NASAThis artist's rendition released 20 April, 2005 by NASA shows a massive asteroid belt in orbit around a star the same age and size as our Sun.
A sizable asteroid is set to rocket past Earth next month, and scientists,
while confident it will not strike our planet, are nonetheless unsure how close it will actually come.Discovered two years ago, near-Earth object 2013 TX68 is roughly the size of a basketball court; fairly small, as asteroids go. TX68 is locked in an orbit that brings it near our planet every few years.
The next transit is expected to occur March 5. How close will it come to Earth? Scientists aren't exactly sure.
"The variation in possible closest-approach distances is due to the wide range of possible trajectories for this object, since it was tracked for only a short time after discovery," NASA officials said in a statement released Wednesday.
While there's no risk of impact, the asteroid could come as close as 11,000 miles from Earth, or inside the orbit of many satellites. For comparison, the Moon is 238,900 miles from Earth.
On the other extreme end of the scale, TX68's transit could occur 9 million miles away.
Comment: Video footage taken moments after the overhead meteor explosion that showered meteorites down on the town of Vellore, southern India: