Asteroid could strike earth on Valentine's Day 2046: NASA
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Loading... - Mason Bell
- 09 Mar 2023
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An asteroid could potentially strike Earth on February 14, 2046, NASA said in a tweet on Tuesday.
The newly discovered asteroid, known as 2023 DW, has caught the attention of NASA’s Asteroid Watch team who have been tracking it to monitor its movements.
As the asteroid is a new discovery, it will take several weeks of data to reduce the uncertainties and predict its orbit accurately years into the future.
The space agency said it will continue to monitor 2023 DW and update its predictions as more data becomes available.
The asteroid has an average diameter of 49 m and is currently 0.12 astronomical units (AU) or approximately 11 billion miles away from Earth.
One astronomical unit is approximately the average distance between the Earth and the Sun.
However, NASA has confirmed that even if the asteroid does hit the Earth, it is unlikely to cause a global catastrophe.
To put things into perspective, a similarly-sized asteroid of about 50-60 meters in diameter exploded over Eastern Siberia in 1908. It caused a 12-megaton explosion that flattened an estimated 80 million trees over an area of 2,150 km2 (830 square miles). The impact of the asteroid left no significant human casualties. Read More…
