The first calculations said that the collision could happen on February 14, 2046. Astronomers carefully monitor newly discovered space objects and refine their orbit calculations for the following years within weeks.
During this time, the asteroid 2023 DW has progressed from the first rung of the so-called Turin scale, which evaluates the danger of a possible collision of our planet with some space body, to level 0. This means that the probability of a collision is “zero, or is so low that is basically zero”, writes the server bnonews.
“The latest measurements and calculations of its path show that the asteroid will safely pass us by on February 14, 2046 at a distance of several million kilometers,” added Petr Pravec from the Astronomical Institute of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic for Novinky.
On Valentine’s Day 2046, Earth could collide with an asteroid
“According to the site NEODYS operated by ESA, the current forecast is that the smallest possible distance at which the planet will approach the Earth in 2046 will be 0.0196 astronomical units (AU), i.e. 2.9 million kilometers,” explained his colleague Petr Scheirich.
According to him, the so-called nominal distance, which is 0.0321 AU, i.e. 4.8 million km, corresponds even better to the current observations and path calculations.
Other potentially dangerous bodies
The world’s astronomers immediately shifted their attention to another asteroid 2023 DZ2, which was discovered on February 27 this year in the Canary Islands. It is about 64 meters in diameter, more than three times the size of the Chelyabinsk asteroid, which hit Russia in 2013 and injured nearly 1,500 people.
The first calculations said that it should hit the Earth on March 27, 2026. After several weeks of observation, it was assigned a number one on the Turin scale, which means that there is currently no cause for concern.
One of the “closest encounters” between an asteroid and our planet took place this January, when a newly discovered planet flew past the Earth at a height of only 3,600 kilometers.
Scientists analyzed in detail the successful test of planetary defense
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