Newly Discovered Asteroid 2013 EC Makes Near-Earth Flyby on March 4

The newly discovered asteroid identified as 2013 EC will have its near-Earth flyby at an approximated distance of the moon's orbit on Monday, March 4, at 2:35 a.m. ET (7:35 a.m. UTC). Arizona's Mount Lemmon Observatory found the Asteroid 2013 EC on Saturday with the confirmation that it will not hit planet Earth during its closest approach.

The asteroid will approach within 246,000 miles (396,000 kilometers) from Earth while the moon's distance from Earth differs between 225,622 and 252,088 miles (363,104 to 406,696 kilometers). Asteroid 2013 EC is estimated to have the size of the 2013 Russia meteor blast that happened last February 15. Its measurement is about 10 to 17 meters wide (33 to 55 feet).

Gianluca Masi of the Virtual Telescope Project conducted a live stream of Asteroid 2013 EC when it was approximately twice the distance of the moon. "That we are finding all these asteroids recently does not mean that we are being visited by more asteroids, just that our ability to detect them has gotten so much better. Our technology has improved a lot over the past decades," Masi stated during the webcast which can be viewed on the YouTube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=VVjOhRIkHeo.

Currently, researchers have identified about 95% of the 980 huge space rocks anticipated to have a near-Earth approach and none of them threatens an impact or collision in the future. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) continue to dedicate themselves in searching the potentially hazardous asteroids in space.

The B612 Foundation will soon join the asteroid hunt as well as the asteroid-mining firms with the objective to keep Earth safe from the approaching space rocks. Planetary Resources, with Google executives Larry Page and Eric Schmidt as financial backers, stated that their prototype asteroid-prospecting spacecrafts should help in the asteroid search after launching the telescopes named Arkyd-100s in 2014 or 2015.

"The technology Planetary Resources develops to characterize and mine space rocks will also help protect Earth by giving us the infrastructure to routinely and swiftly interact with and move asteroids, like 2012 DA14, which could someday pose a threat to Earth," Peter Diamandis, the company co-founder and co-chair declared in a statement.

Deep Space Industries, another asteroid-mining firm, plans to launch as well the spacecraft called Fireflies on 2015. "Fireflies could examine the potentially dangerous asteroids up close, gleaning insights about their composition that may be vital to deflection efforts," company officials stated.

David Gump, Deep Space Industries CEO, declared in a released statement: "Placing 10 of our small Firefly spacecraft into position to intercept close encounters would take four years and less than $100 million. This will help the world develop the understanding needed to block later threats."