March 10, 2023, 20:46 PM
March 10, 2023, 20:46 PM
The NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office has reported on Tuesday (03.07.2023) about the discovery of a asteroid that it could come dangerously close to Earth in about 23 years.
According to the spatial entity, the rock called 2023 DW it has a 625 chance of hitting our planet, a probability considered low by specialists.
“We have been tracking a new asteroid called 2023 DW that has a very small chance of hitting against Earth in 2046,” the agency announced on its Twitter account.
An asteroid the size of a swimming pool
The rocky object, which has a diameter about 50 meterssimilar to the length of an Olympic swimming pool, was first identified on February 27.
Since then, analysts have been following its movements to predict its orbit in the future, and calculating an exact date of an eventual impact.
Predictions are updated daily
Astronomers estimate that the February 14, 2046 it will be the day that the orbit of 2023 DW will be as close as possible to Earth, although the probabilities are recalculated daily.
“Often when new objects are first discovered, several weeks of data are needed to reduce uncertainties and adequately predict their future orbits,” the space agency tweeted.
Earth Protection Plan
Asteroid 2023 DW does not have the characteristics of being a “planet killer”. An impact on Earth would not produce events as catastrophic as those caused by the asteroid of 12 kilometers wide Who is credited with the extinction of the dinosaurs.
However, this new space object could cause Serious damage in some cities or densely populated areas. In 2013, for example, a meteorite much smaller than 2023 DW exploded over Chelyabinsk (Russia), causing property damage and injuring some 1,500 people.
The POTtogether with other space agencies, have designed an international strategy to protect Earth from the threat of impact by large asteroids.
One of the most recent planetary security tests was the DART mission, in which the small asteroid Dimorphos was successfully deflected, according to the researchers in charge.
Edited by José Ignacio Urrejola
