NASA marks Valentine's Day 2046 as the potential day of impact.
A newly discovered asteroid roughly the size of an Olympic swimming pool has a"small chance" of colliding with Earth in 23 years, with a potential impact on Valentine's Day in 2046, according to NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office.
People are also reading… Though the 2023 DW tops the list, its ranking of 1 means only that"the chance of collision is extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or public concern," according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, while a 0 ranking means the"likelihood of a collision is zero, or is so low as to be effectively zero."
"Often when new objects are first discovered," NASA Asteroid Watch noted Tuesday on Twitter,"it takes several weeks of data to reduce the uncertainties and adequately predict their orbits years into the future." "However, such early predictions can often be ruled out as we incorporate more observations and reduce the uncertainties in the object's orbit," it reads."Most often, the threat associated with a specific object will decrease as additional observations become available."
The asteroid measures about 160 feet in diameter, according to NASA data. As 2023 DW orbits the sun, it has 10 predicted close approaches to Earth, with the nearest landing on February 14, 2046, and nine others between 2047 and 2054. The closest the asteroid is expected to travel to Earth is about 1.1 million miles , NASA's Eyes on Asteroids website notes.It's traveling about 15.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
NASA tracks a newly discovered asteroid that has a 'small chance' of hitting Earth in 2046NASA marks Valentine's Day 2046 as the potential day of impact.
Read more »
NASA discovers asteroid that has slight chance of hitting Earth on Valentine's Day 2046NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office has been tracking a new asteroid named 2023 DW that has a very small chance of impacting Earth on Feb. 14, 2046.
Read more »
NASA is monitoring an asteroid that could collide with Earth on Valentine's Day in 2046Out of the millions of asteroids in our solar system, there's a very small fraction known to potentially impact Earth. But scientists found a new one just two weeks ago that so far seems to pose one of the greatest risks of them all.
Read more »
Newfound Asteroid May Strike Earth in 2046, NASA SaysPreliminary estimates suggest that a 50-meter space rock called 2023 DW has a roughly one-in-600 chance of colliding with our planet in 23 years
Read more »