The asteroid discovered late last month is “very unlikely” to hit Earth on Valentine’s Day 2046, NASA said on Tuesday as astronomers gather more data.
According to NASA, 2023 DW was first spotted in Chile at the end of February and, after about a week’s worth of observations, will have a 1 in 560 chance of colliding with Earth at 21:44 UTC on February 14, 2046. .
“We are tracking a new asteroid named 2023 DW that is highly unlikely to hit Earth in 2046,” NASA’s Office of the Planetary Defense Coordination said in a statement Tuesday.
“When a new object is first discovered, weeks of data are often needed to reduce uncertainty and properly predict its trajectory years into the future,” said the Secretariat.
The asteroid is about 50 meters (164 feet) in diameter, more than twice the size of the meteorite that exploded over Russia in 2013, damaging homes and injuring nearly 1,500 people. DW in 2023 is currently at the top of the European Space Agency’s risk list, at 1 on the Turin scale. This means that there is no general cause for concern at this time. Further observation can reassign the risk to zero.
“Orbital analysts will continue to monitor asteroid 2023 DW and will update projections as more data comes in,” NASA said.
In January, a newly discovered asteroid passed Earth at an altitude of 3,600 kilometers (2,200 miles). And in February, a one-meter asteroid was discovered just hours before it entered the atmosphere, lighting up the skies in France and parts of Western Europe.
