A newly discovered asteroid could hit Earth on Valentine’s Day about 20 years from now, NASA officials tweeted on Tuesday. The odds of an asteroid hitting Earth in her 2046 are 1 in 600, according to the space agency’s Office of the Planetary Defense Coordination.
Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in new tab)
(opens in new tab)
Asteroid in question, 2023 DW(opens in new tab)is approximately the length of an Olympic pool, estimated to be approximately 165 feet (50 meters) in diameter. Despite the higher-than-normal risk level, NASA said in a tweet that 2023 DW is “extremely unlikely to impact Earth.” Moreover, it will take time to “reduce uncertainty and better predict” the trajectories of new objects like 2023 DW.
Still, impacts from near-Earth asteroids won’t be cataclysmic. NASA Ranks Asteroid 1 on Turin Impact Hazard Scale(opens in new tab), which measures the risk of a space object colliding with Earth from 0 to 10. With a score of 1, an actual collision with 2023 DW is “highly unlikely and not cause for public concern,” according to NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
NASA hit an asteroid with a spacecraft. Look what happened next.
“This object doesn’t really matter,” says JPL Navigation Engineer Davide Farnocchia. told CNN(opens in new tab).
The size of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago was 12 km wide. However, impacts near populated cities from 2023 DW can cause problems. In 2013, a meteorite half the size of 2023 DW struck Chelyabinsk, Russia, creating shock waves that damaged thousands of buildings and injured about 1,500 people.
Tweet may have been deleted
(opens in new tab)
(opens in new tab)
If you’re still worried, the success of NASA’s DART mission should put your nerves at ease. Last October, the agency’s Dual Asteroid Redirect test mission successfully changed the orbit of a small asteroid after slamming a spacecraft directly into it. Thus proving NASA’s ability to thwart an attempted planetary impact from a potentially dangerous space object.
“Orbital analysts will continue to monitor asteroid 2023 DW and will update projections as more data becomes available,” said NASA’s Office of the Planetary Defense Coordination. said in a tweet(opens in new tab).
