Massive Asteroid’s chances of hitting Earth in future updated: Here’s what ESA’s latest prediction says

Asteroid 1960 DA, no longer is posing an existential threat, says an updated threat analysis done by the European Space Agency. The stony monster was predicted to be hitting the Earth in 2889 A.D, doing major damage.

Analysis performed by Giorgini et al. and reported in the April 5, 2002 edition of the journal Science. At its greatest, the asteroid represented a risk 50 percent greater than that of the average background hazard due to all other asteroids from the present era through 2880, the report said.

Asteroid 1950 DA is two-thirds of a mile (1.1 kilometers) away from the Earth and as its name suggests, the asteroid was originally discovered in 1950 but then it wasn’t spotted again for over half a century.

In 2001 astronomers observed the asteroid again and after collecting high-precision radar measurements, predicted an initial impact probability of one-in-300.

Although there are asteroids in ESA’s “risk-list” with higher chances of hitting the earth and impacting it majorly, all of these have a diameter of less than ten meters. In other words, 1950 DA is over 100 times larger than any asteroid that’s more likely to hit the planet, making it one of concern for astronomers and worth keeping a watch on.

In fact, even when ESA’s Near-Earth Object Coordination Center does not maintain a list of near-Earth objects at risk of making an impact on Earth more than a century out, with the size of 1950 DA, that is not coming anywhere near before six decades now, astronomers kept in on watch list since it was discovered.

Scientists have found that the most significant factor affecting the asteroid’s future long-term motion was the way heat radiates off the asteroid into space.

But with the continuous up-gradation of the data and close monitoring of the asteroid, if it is eventually decided that 1950 DA needs to be diverted, the hundreds of years of warning could allow an easier method like sending a solar sail spacecraft that ends by collapsing its reflective sail around the asteroid or dusting the surface of the asteroid with chalk or charcoal, These things would change the asteroid’s reflectivity and allow sunlight to do the work of pushing the asteroid out of the way, NASA’s page about 1950 DA analysis says.

Scientists are still researching 1950 DA to refine the prediction over the last two decades. In 2015, the impact probability was reduced to one-in-8,000 and this could reduce further in later decades.

NEOCC’s new risk assessment result based on all available data up until December 2021 says that the estimated impact probability in 2880 is approximately 1-in-50,000.

“There is no reason for concern over 1950 DA,” reads the NASA Center for Near-Earth Object Studies page on the asteroid. On a lighter note, it said, “The most likely result will be that St. Patrick’s Day parades in 2880 will be a little more festive than usual as 1950 DA recedes into the distance, having passed Earth by.”