Do you celebrate
Valentine's Day each year?
Well,
you might want to
circle that day in 2046, because
planetary defense office
is tracking a new asteroid
that has a very small chance
of hitting Earth in 23 years.
Joining me now is David Farr, No
He's a navigation engineer
at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laborat
Davida, thank you so much for jo
And I'd love to start by just as
about this newly discovered aste
20 the name of this asteroid is
23. D.W.
Based on your experience and exp
how much of a danger
does this pose to planet Earth?
No, this object is not
particularly concerning.
It was discovered on February 26
and at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab
in particular
at the Center for near-Earth
Object Studies.
We keep track of those,
and whenever there is a new disc
we measure the trajectory
for the next hundred years
and check
whether there's even a remote po
for an impact.
In most cases,
we find that the impact is not p
We can rule that out very quickl
In this case, we cannot do that
We need more data to get to that
But we have a small, very small
impact probability for 20, 46.
I always like to put things
in another way.
There is a
99.8% probability that the objec
going to reach the earth.
Well, that's great to hear.
But, you know,
any time
an asteroid is at least on on so
with some potential of
of hitting Earth, it
you know, it makes earthlings ta
This asteroid is about 50 meters
across about the size
of an Olympic swimming pool.
Why was it only discovered in Fe
Because I know this is a concern
that NASA's has about asteroids
being perhaps detected
later than they would like
Yeah.
So these object is only 50 meter
It means that it really needs
to come close enough to Earth
for us to pick it up.
And we had to wait until
until last February
to have the first good chance
of discovering it.
But NASA's
really tasked
with discovering
more than 90% of the objects.
140 meters or greater,
because those are the ones
that could cause significant dam
This one is fairly small,
and it's a side
benefit of our search for astero
And the fact that we could disco
an object
is small
with a small impact probability
It's like
20 more than 20 years of lead ti
That's a pretty good sign of wha
pretty good in discovering objec
Yeah, absolutely.
So I understood.
I just want to reiterate very, v
very slim chance that this does
hit Earth.
But let's just say by some chanc
What kind of damage
would an asteroid of this size d
50 meters across?
Well, I think a good analog
is the Tunguska impactor
that happened in 19 08.
That was an impact over over Rus
and that flattened
trees over 2000 square kilometer
So that's the kind of analog.
But again, as you said,
the probability is really small.
As soon as we get
new data, we're going to be able
to refine the orbital calculatio
and update the hazard assessment
And chances
are we're going to be able
to rule out this possibility
really quick.
One more question for you.
NASA's big
spacecraft, the DART spacecraft
that hit that asteroid
and successfully hit
it off
course off its orbit earlier
or I guess in November of last y
The first planetary defense test
Could that type of technology be
to push an asteroid like this
about Absolutely.
That's the very reason why
we we flew that mission.
We wanted to see
and prove
that we had the capability
of moving an asteroid off course
in case we needed to do that.
And that mission was
a spectacular success.
It was such a beautiful bullseye
One of my favorite space stories
of the year, Derby Day for Nokia
I hope I did not butcher
your name too much.
Thank you so much
for sharing all of your expertiz
in talking to asteroids with me.
Thank you for having me.