Apocalypse averted: 'Doomsday' asteroid 2046 will most certainly miss us on Valentine's

The asteroid that was feared to hit Earth in 2046 is highly unlikely to hit our planet, NASA said in a statement. While many started to call asteroid 2046, expected to hit Earth on Valentine's Day, a "doomsday" event, the danger seems to have been averted. While earlier, asteroid 2046was given a 1-in-600 chance of smashing into Earth, NASA has now revised the estimate to around 1-in-770. The asteroid was first detected on February 27 and named 2023 DW. It is roughly the length of an Olympic-size swimming pool.

NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office gaveasteroid 2046 a slim chance of a direct impact withthe Earth while stating that it was a possibility. But the revised estimate of around 1-in-770 means that the asteroid now has a 99.87 per cent chance of missing us. The European Space Agency's (ESA) Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre also downgraded the impact odds from a 1-in-625 chance to around 1-in-1,584.

"It will go down now with every observation until it reaches zero in a couple of days at the latest," Richard Moissl, head of the ESA's planetary defence office, told AFP. "No one needs to be worried about this guy."

However, in case asteroid 2046, officially known as2023 DW, still manages to smash into Earth, it is not likely to cause the scale of destruction that was inflicted 66 million years ago by the 12-kilometre-wide asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

Which asteroid will hit Earth?

NASA has been keeping a watch on roughly 28,000 asteroids. The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) helps NASA to keep a watch on near-Earth objects. It consists of an array of four telescopes that can perform a scan of the entire night sky every 24 hours. Any object that comes within 193 million kilometres of Earth is flagged as a "near-Earth object". Anything larger with the potential to come within 7.5 million kilometres of our planet is termed "potentially hazardous."

According to the space agency, the trajectories of all these near-Earth objects have been traced till the end of the century and no apocalyptic asteroid collision is on the cards for at least the next 100 years.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission has been designed to deflect any asteroid that might pose a danger to Earth. On September 26, the mission altered the course of the asteroid Dimorphos by 32 minutes.

(With inputs from agencies)