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100-Foot-Wide Asteroid TX68 Safely Flies by Earth

Whew! We can all breathe a sigh of relief. A 100-foot wide asteroid whizzed by the Earth on Monday night and (obviously) avoided a collision with our fair planet, NBC News reported.

Asteroid 2013 TX68 made its closest approach to Earth at about 7 p.m. ET Monday, according to Laurie Cantillo, a spokeswoman for NASA.

NASA originally said the yacht-sized asteroid would fly by on March 5, but additional data allowed NASA's Center for Near-Earth Object Studies Propulsion Laboratory (CNEOS) to "get a better handle on its orbital path" and predict that it would pass on March 8.

NASA was also able to determine last month that the asteroid would likely be 3 million miles away (about 379 times the Earth's diameter) when it flew past Earth — but said the giant space rock could come as close as 15,000 miles (less than two times the Earth's diameter).

The reason for the vast range? The asteroid could only be tracked for a short time after it was discovered on Oct. 6, 2013, according to NASA.

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