An asteroid with a diameter of about 50 meters, discovered on February 26, has a trajectory that poses a small risk of colliding with Earth on February 14, 2046, the US space agency said this Thursday.
“We are tracking a new asteroid called 2023 DW, which has a very low chance of hitting Earth in 2046. Often, when new objects are discovered for the first time, several weeks of data are required to reduce uncertainty and adequately predict their consequences. in the future,” explains NASA on its asteroid-tracking Twitter account.
The maximum approach of the asteroid to the Earth is scheduled for February 14, 2046, 1.8 million kilometers from the planet, according to the same source quoted by the Efe agency.
NASA Orbital Analysts will continue to monitor asteroid 2023 DW and will update forecasts as new data become available.
The asteroid, discovered at the MAP San Pedro de Atacama observatory in Chile, has an estimated diameter of 49 meters and is currently 0.12 astronomical units from Earth, orbiting at a relative speed relative to the Sun of 24.63 kilometers per second (more 88 thousand kilometers per hour).
Its orbital period is 271 days.
The European Space Agency’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Center on Wednesday predicted a 1 in 625 chance of a direct impact, but those probabilities are recalculated daily.