Submitted by ethereal3xp t3_11nsoze in Futurology

https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/09/world/asteroid-collision-risk-2046-nasa-scn/index.html

>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 has a 1 in 625 chance of striking Earth, based on data projections from the European Space Agency, though NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Sentry system calculated the odds closer to 1 in 560. The latter tracks potential collisions with celestial objects.

But the space rock — named 2023 DW — is the only object on NASA's risk list that ranks 1 out of 10 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale, a metric for categorizing the projected risk of an object colliding with Earth. All other objects rank at 0 on the Torino scale.

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."

"This object is not particularly concerning," said Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

NASA 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.

"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."

The asteroid measures about 160 feet (about 50 meters) 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 (1.8 million kilometers), NASA's Eyes on Asteroids website notes.

The space rock was first spotted in our skies on February 2.

It's traveling about 15.5 miles per second (25 kilometers per second) at a distance of more than 11 million miles (18 million kilometers) from Earth, completing one loop around the sun every 271 days.

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Voyage_of_Roadkill t1_jbox0hk wrote

Being the size of a pool, I wonder if any of it will even remain after entering the atmosphere. The coolest part of this story is they spotted something over a million miles away and have 23 years to intercept it and try to divert or capture it as an experiment.

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coffeeinvenice t1_jbqqij8 wrote

I aways love doing the math on these things.

An asteroid 50 meters across has some small risk of hitting the Earth. The closest it will ever approach is 1.8 million kilometers.

That's the equivalent of a 2.5 cm bullet passing you at a distance of 900 kilometers.

So that's like you're standing in Times Square in New York, and the closest the bullet ever gets to you is just south of Raleigh, North Carolina.

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Aljhaqu t1_jbp20ub wrote

A bit late, I hoped it could help us with our situation...

Out of jokes, while a high probability, I Find it quite unlikely that it could become a menace for the planet... As it has already being demonstrated the human technological capability for the change in the trajectory of celestial bodies such as asteroids and meteorites by the use of lasers and other means.

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JC2535 t1_jboytp2 wrote

Maybe Elon will get bored with Twitter by then and prep a rocket for intercept… but I doubt it.

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Cpleofcrazies2 t1_jbosb9e wrote

Wish it was hitting today....yes tongue in cheek not really hoping for massive death and destruction. That would be bad

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