Nasa: Asteroid headed toward Earth may arrive on Valentine's Day 2046

Nasa has tweeted that a newly detected asteroid has a very small chance of impacting the Earth in 2046.

If it does hit, the asteroid, roughly the size of an Olympic swimming pool, may arrive on Valentine's Day 2046 according to Nasa calculations, BBC reports.

The closest the asteroid is expected to get to Earth is about 1.1 million miles (1.8m km), Nasa says.

But researchers are still collecting data, which they say may change predictions.
The asteroid, dubbed 2023 DW, has about a 1 in 560 chance of hitting Earth, according to Nasa. It's the only space rock on Nasa's risk list that ranks 1 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale.

The scale, which goes from 0-10, measures the risk of space objects colliding with Earth. All other objects on the scale rank 0, indicating no risk for impact.

A ranking of 1 means that an actual collision is extremely unlikely and has no cause for public concern, Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) says.

"This object is not particularly concerning," JPL navigation engineer Davide Farnocchia told CNN.

If it does collide with us, 2023 DW would not have the same doomsday effect as the asteroid that decimated the Earth's dinosaurs 66 million years ago. That asteroid was far bigger at 7.5 miles (12km) wide, Scientific American says.