Newly Spotted 50-meter Asteroid Tops Risk List
upstart writes:
Newly spotted 50-meter asteroid tops Risk List:
Valentine's Day 2046 could be memorable for a number of reasons. Not only might you receive a card from an admirer you never knew you had, but you might also witness a large asteroid slamming into Earth and causing widespread devastation.
Hopefully the only delivery anyone will be getting that day is a card, but scientists say that a 49-meter-wide asteroid discovered last week is currently calculated to have a 1-in-625 chance of hitting our planet in a couple of decades from now.
The rock, called 2023 DW, now sits atop the European Space Agency's Risk List as the only one with a "1" rating on the Torino scale, which is used for categorizing the impact hazard of near-Earth objects.
[...] As asteroid 2023 DW was only discovered a few days ago, scientists are continuing with their analysis to determine more precisely the characteristics of the rock, which is similar in size to an Olympic swimming pool.
[...] If later analysis suggests an increased risk of 2023 DW crashing into Earth, it would be a golden opportunity for NASA to deploy its asteroid deflection system. The technology was tested last year with great success when it smashed a spacecraft into a distant asteroid, with the force of the impact altering the rock's course.
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