Giant asteroid might hit it off with Earth on Valentine's Day 23 years later

A giant asteroid could be ruining Valentine's Day plans more than two deces from now, according to European Space Agency. 2023 DW, an asteroid size of an Olympic swimming pool, has a tiny chance of ramming into Earth on Valentine's Day 23 years later, New York Post reported.

agency, which has asteroid placed on top of its "Risk List", believes that 2023 DW has one in 625 chance of hitting our home planet in 2046. What makes 50-meter diameter rock a threat is that it has a greater than zero probability of striking our home planet.

2023 DW is only asteroid marked on Risk List which has obtained a score of one on Torino scale, a method that is used to categorise how much risk a space object poses to Earth. Or asteroids on list have been rated zero. Level 1 denotes that chances of object colliding with Earth are “extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or public concern,” as per Center for Near Earth Object Studies.

NASA keeps a close watch on asteroid 

“New telescopic observations very likely will le to re-assignment to Level 0,” scale states. asteroid is on rar of NASA, which said that it has been monitoring 2023 DW and it has “a very small chance of impacting Earth in 2046”. “Often when new objects are first discovered, it takes several weeks of data to reduce uncertainties and equately predict ir orbits years into future,” NASA Asteroid Watch said in a tweet.

agency has said that its orbit analysts will continue to track movement of asteroid. But even if threat heightens, earth-inhabitants can rest assured that NASA has enough technology to save planet, just like it did last year. In 2022, NASA successfully carried out DART mission of changing orbit of a tiny asteroid and subsequently redirecting its trajectory.