The American space agency (NASA) announced that after 23 years, on February 14, 2046, an asteroid named 2023 DW may fall to Earth, the New York Post reports.
Asteroid 2023 DW is about 49.29 meters in diameter and is now about 0.12 Astronomical Units from Earth. An astronomical unit is an average distance between the center of the Earth and the center of the Sun. Relative to the Sun, the asteroid is moving at a speed of about 24.64 kilometers per second. 2023 DW orbits the Sun once in about 271 days. It is at the top of NASA's list of potentially dangerous asteroids with the highest chance of impacting the Earth.
2023 DW is the only asteroid on the "danger list" with a 1 on the Turin scale, which is used to classify the risk of a collision with Earth. All other asteroids have 0 points. According to the Center for the Study of Near-Earth Objects, the probability of a 1-point collision is "unlikely and of no concern to the public".
NASA is tracking 2023 DW and says it is "unlikely to hit Earth in 2046."
"Often, when new objects are first discovered, weeks of data are needed to reduce uncertainties and predict their behavior over years. Analysts will continue to monitor its movement," - NASA Asteroid Watch wrote on Twitter.
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