An asteroid crashing into Earth and wiping out our entire race is one of the biggest fears in astronomy. That is why from NASA and how many scientific organizations that study the stars can come up with, look for rocks that could possibly impact our planet.
In the most recent count of asteroids in our Solar System, there are approximately 960,000 rocks orbiting our massive star. Some of them have a (very low) percentage of colliding with the Earth.
Scientists around the world monitor them and calculate their trajectory with the intention of knowing or ruling out that we are in danger. In parallel, NASA successfully executes missions such as the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), in which they crashed a space probe into an asteroid to change its trajectory.
It is so far the best method to protect ourselves from the impact of a meteorite that destroys us as a race, just as it happened with the dinosaurs 66 million years ago.
The discovered asteroid
The new asteroid that scientists’ radars detected bears the name of 2023 DW. According to a website report Processwas discovered from Chile, specifically by the MAP San Pedro de Atacama Observatory.
It measures about 50.3 meters, which means that it does not represent as delicate a danger as the one caused by the Chicxulub crater (10 kilometers).
It is located about 0.12 astronomical units (AU) from Earth and moves at 24.66 kilometers per second. It has an orbital period of 271 days and according to calculations the day it will be closest to us will be February 14, 2046.
In other words, we have plenty of time to prepare in the event of a serious threat 23 years from now.
We’ve been tracking a new asteroid named 2023 DW that 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 the uncertainties and adequately predict their orbits years into the future. (1/2) pic.twitter.com/SaLC0AUSdP
— NASA Asteroid Watch (@AsteroidWatch) March 7, 2023
