[The Epoch Times, March 14, 2023](The Epoch Times reporter Zhang Ting comprehensive report) The Planetary Defense Coordination Office of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) announced a few days ago that it has been tracking a newly discovered asteroid. It is possible that the planet will hit Earth on Valentine’s Day in 2046, but the odds are very slim. As NASA collects more observational data, the predicted impact probability may also change significantly.
According to NASA, the asteroid is about 160 feet (about 50 meters) in diameter. As the asteroid, dubbed “2023 DW,” orbits the sun, it is expected to have 10 close approaches to Earth, the most recent on February 14, 2046, and another nine between 2047 and 2054 between.
According to the European Space Agency, the asteroid has a 1 in 625 chance of hitting Earth, while NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Sentinel system calculates the chance to be closer to 1 in 560. The latter is responsible for tracking potential collisions between Earth and celestial bodies.
Despite the “very small” chance of an impact, orbital analysts will continue to observe the asteroid.
NASA officials have warned that as more observations of the asteroid are gathered and additional analysis is done, the predicted chance of impact could change dramatically.
“Usually when a new object is first discovered, several weeks of data are needed to reduce uncertainty and fully predict its orbit for years to come,” NASA’s Asteroid Watch said on Twitter.
“Orbital analysts will continue to monitor asteroid ‘2023 DW’ and update forecasts as more data becomes available,” said Asteroid Watch.
The good news is that it only has about a 1 in 500 chance of actually hitting Earth, said theoretical physicist and professor Dr. Michio Kaku, The Hill reported on March 13. But the bad news is that humans have no defense against it. Michio Kaku explained that “2023 DW” is a “city destroyer” capable of destroying Washington, D.C. or London if it hits Earth.
But Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, was optimistic: “This object is not particularly worrisome.”
Fanokia cited the success of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission last September as proof that humans can be prepared for an attack by a space rock with a potentially catastrophic course. In that test, DART deliberately crashed a spacecraft into an asteroid to alter the asteroid’s trajectory.
“That’s the fundamental reason we’re doing this mission,” he told CNN, “and it’s been an amazing success.”
Responsible editor: Lin Yan#