SCIENTISTS have spotted an asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool, which is expected to come dangerously close to Earth on Valentines Day 2046.
Nasa is keeping a close eye on the giant space rock, after discovering it earlier this week.
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“We’ve been tracking a new asteroid named 2023 DW that has a very small chance of impacting Earth in 2046,” said Nasa this week.
“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.”
Asteroid 2023 DW is about 49metres in diameter, and is currently around 17billion kilometres from Earth.
Orbit analysts are set to continue monitoring the asteroid, and update their predictions as more data comes in.
But Nasa said that even if the asteroid does impact Earth – it’s unlikely to cause a global catastrophe.
In 1908, a similarly-sized asteroid of about 50-60metres exploded over a Eastern Siberian forest, killing three people, according to eyewitness reports from the time.
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs is also thought to have been between 10 and 15 kilometres wide.
So, humans on the ground don’t need to worry about an extinction-level space rock just yet.
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However, Nasa’s bonkers mission to knock an asteroid off its course in a test-run to save humanity last year actually worked, new images revealed earlier this month.
The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, known as DART, saw the first-ever trial of preventing a potentially devastating asteroid collision with Earth.
This means that even if a catastrophic asteroid was going to collide with Earth, that Nasa now has a back-up plan – although it is still being perfected.
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