NASA Announced: Meteorite may hit Earth in 2046
The US Aerospace Agency (NASA) announced that it has observed a (albeit small) asteroid that is likely to hit Earth in 2046.
The US Aerospace Agency (NASA) announced that they have discovered a new meteorite.
According to NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, the Olympic swimming pool-sized asteroid, whose movements have been tracked since early February, will pass closest to Earth in 23 years and have a potential impact probability.
The probability of hitting the Earth, designated “2023 DW”, has been calculated by the European Space Agency as 1 in 625 and according to NASA as 1 in 560.
NASA officials expressed the view that this probability could change significantly as further analysis of the 2023 DW is conducted.
According to NASA data, the diameter of 2023 DW is calculated as about 50 meters, while it is estimated that the meteorite will pass 1.8 million kilometers from the earth on February 14, 2046.
While the asteroid moves at 25 kilometers per second, it completes one orbit around the sun in 271 days.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Orientation Test (DART) spacecraft successfully crashed into the asteroid, about 11 million kilometers from Earth, on September 27, 2022, as planned, and managed to slightly change the orbit of the meteorite.
