A few days ago, many were terrified after the discovery of the DW 2023 asteroid, one that had a slight chance of colliding with our planet about two decades from now. But now, according to the European Space Agency and as Phys.org reveals, the probability of the recently discovered asteroid colliding with Earth on Valentine’s Day 2046 has significantly decreased.
The asteroid, known as 2023 DW, was first spotted by a small Chilean observatory in February and was quickly identified as a potentially dangerous object. Early predictions gave it a one in 847 chance of hitting Earth, which then increased to one in 432 before dropping to one in 1,584 overnight. NASA also lowered its impact odds to one in 770, indicating a 99.87% likelihood that the asteroid will not hit Earth.
The head of the ESA’s planetary defense office, Richard Moissl, explained that newly discovered asteroids’ impact odds briefly rise before quickly falling due to new observations that reduce the “uncertainty region” where the asteroid may travel closest to Earth. As further observations exclude Earth from that uncertainty region, the probability of impact drops down to zero, as expected to happen with 2023 DW. This pattern is normal for newly discovered asteroids. Although 2023 DW was initially feared to have the potential to wipe out a city, it is now unlikely to pose any danger to Earth on Valentine’s Day 2046.
There’s plenty of hope
There’s a lot of hope that we won’t share a similar fate as the dinosaurs had tens of millions of years ago, or anything similar. Dr. Agata Rożek from the University of Edinburgh explained as The Jerusalem Post quotes:
I think the smashing success of DART shows we have a fighting chance of deflecting small asteroids, and 23 years seems like enough warning time for an asteroid this size,
Of course, we would need to study 2023 DW to understand how similar it is to Dimorphos, and how the outcome of DART impact would scale to plan an adequate response. Fortunately, we have eyes on the skies and telescopes and tools to do that.
In the end, we must keep in mind that it’s practically impossible for the 2023 DW asteroid to have our planet’s name written on it.
