New asteroid hitting earth in 2046?!!!

NASA is continuously tracking asteroids and other near-Earth objects to determine if they pose a potential threat to our planet. If a newly discovered asteroid has been identified as having a small chance of impacting Earth in 2046, it is possible that NASA or other space agencies are monitoring its trajectory to determine the likelihood and potential consequences of an impact. It is important to note that the vast majority of known asteroids do not pose a threat to Earth, and those that do are typically identified well in advance, allowing for measures to be taken to mitigate any potential impact.

Size :

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.

The asteroid, with a 50-meter diameter (about 160 feet), is at the number one spot on ESA’s “Risk List” of space objects that have a greater than zero probability of making an impact on Earth. It is also the only space rock on that list that scored a 1 on the Torino scale, which is used to categorise the risk of impact to the Earth level. All others have 0 ratings.

As per Jet Propulsion Laboratory, level 1 indicates the “chance of collision is extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or public concern”. “This object is not particularly concerning,” said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, as per CNN.

Will an asteroid hit in 2046?

Asteroid 2023 DW has a better chance of hitting a date of 14 February than our planet, NASA says. A newly detected asteroid has a very small chance of impacting the Earth in 2046, NASA tweeted .

What asteroid will hit Earth in 2044?

“1999 AN10 is about half a mile in size and the probability is 1 in 500,000 that it will collide with the Earth in 2044,” said Dr. Brian Marsden, director of the Minor Planet Center (MPC), a clearinghouse for data about asteroids and comets traveling through the solar system.

Is it true?

The space rock, named 2023 DW, has a 1 in 625 chance of striking our planet, based on data projections from the European Space Agency (ESA). But NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Sentry System – which tracks potential collisions with celestial objects – calculated the odds close to 1 in 560.

Further, the US space agency officials have warned that the odds of impact could be dramatically altered as more observations of 2023 DW are collected and additional analysis is performed. NASA stated that the 2023 DW has “a very small chance of impacting Earth in 2046”.

“Often when new objects are first discovered it takes several weeks of data to reduce the uncertainties and adequately predict their orbits years into the future,” said NASA Asteroid Watch wrote in Twitter post.

Others asteroids :

Separately, NASA’s Eyes on Asteroids noted that 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 (1.8 million kilometers).

Notably, the space rock was first spotted on February 2. It’s travelling about 25 kilometres per second at a distance of more than 18 million kilometres from Earth, completing one loop around the sun every 271 days.

Risk of asteroid impact:

It’s common for newly discovered asteroids to appear more threatening when first observed.

“Because orbits stemming from very limited observation sets are more uncertain it is more likely that such orbits will ‘permit’ future impacts,” the Center for Near Earth Object Studies, located at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, notes on its website.

“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.”

It may be a few days before new data can be collected because of the asteroid’s proximity to the moon, Farnocchia noted in an email to CNN. The last full moon was two days ago, and it still appears bright and large in the sky, likely obscuring 2023 DW from immediate observation, he said.

“But then the object will remain observable for weeks (even months with larger telescopes) so we can get plenty of observations as needed,” he added.

DART:

In September 2022, NASA crashed its Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, into an asteroid to see if it could prevent potentially devastating collisions with Earth. Later NASA confirmed the mission was a success.