On February 26, 2023, astronomers Georges Attard and Alain Maury discovered an asteroid approximately 50 meters in diameter, today referred to as 2023 DW. At the time, the object was 0.07 AU (about 10.5 million kilometers) from our planet. After two days of observation they concluded that could collide with Earth on February 14, 2046, reports the website Live Science.
Although some foreign media present the event in a rather unfortunate way – for example “Don’t make any plans for Valentine’s Day 2046!” – the reality is considerably less dramatic at the moment. From the findings so far, it follows that the chance of a collision with the Earth is low – about 1 in 600, i.e. approximately 0.17%.
Asteroid 2023 DW
NASA Planetary Defense Coordination Office informed about asteroid 2023 DW on Twitter shortly before midnight on Wednesday, March 7. “We are tracking a new asteroid called 2023 DW which it has a very small chance of hitting Earth in 2046.“ stated in the post.
“When new bodies are discovered, it often takes several weeks to reduce the uncertainties and adequately predict their orbits years in advance.” states the official account of the organization whose task is the early detection of potentially dangerous space objects. “Our analysts will continue to monitor asteroid 2023 DW and update predictions as more data becomes available.”
The predicted impact areas stretch from the Indian Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and from the West to East coasts of the US – with possible impacts to Los Angeles, Hawaii and Washington. Calculations so far indicate that the Pacific Ocean is statistically the most likely impact site. On the contrary, Europe should not be threatened.
Coordination Center for Near Earth Objects of the European Space Agency expresses the probability of a collision with Earth is 1 in 625. The possibility of an impact is therefore low, but not negligible. Only further observations and analysis of the object’s orbit will show whether it will actually collide with our planet.
What if it hits Earth?
Earth’s collision with this asteroid would certainly did not have such tragic consequences, as had a collision with an asteroid about 12 kilometers in size that occurred 66 million years ago. As a result of this event, many plant and animal species became extinct, including the dinosaurs.
According to measurements so far, 2023 DW is about two to three times larger than Chelyabinsk meteor, whose explosion at a height of 30 to 45 kilometers above the Earth caused damage to thousands of buildings and injured approximately 1,500 people. It can be assumed that if 2023 DW were to land near a large city or densely populated area, it could cause serious damage.
Dimensions correspond to the assumed size of the Tunguska meteorite, with which our planet collided on June 30, 1908. The object exploded at a height of 5 to 10 kilometers above the Earth’s surface, and the explosion was so powerful that it uprooted and broke more than 80 million trees in an area of approximately 2,150 km². The force of the explosion was estimated at 10 to 30 megatons, which is 2,000 times more than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.
Although a collision with 2023 DW is highly unlikely, scientists are intensively developing methods to protect the Earth from potentially dangerous asteroids. Last week, NASA released four studies confirming that the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully changed the trajectory of a small asteroid after a spacecraft crashed into it. Currently, other missions are being prepared, the aim of which is to further improve the effectiveness of this planetary defense technique.
