NASA defines as any asteroid that intersects Earth's orbit at a distance from the planet of around 4.6 million miles (7.4 million kilometers) or less and that has a magnitude of 22.0 when discovered, which is only a little brighter than the faintest stars visible to the Hubble Space Telescope.
"Today is Epoch 1, the impact probability has now reached 1%," Chodas said. "The potential impact is 13 years from now, so it's not imminent, but we already can predict the date at which the impact is possible."
The potential impact date is calculated as October 22, 2036, and despite this decade-plus preparation time, the NEO program manager explains that important decisions have to be made now. But, there are still several uncertain aspects, some of which are characteristics of the 2023 PDC asteroid itself, that will be key to how humanity deals with the threat.
Scientists have explained what would happen if an asteroid was on a collision course with Earth to emphasize the need for planetary defense. The hypothetical asteroid scenario illustrates how an asteroid threat might evolve over several years and the potential devastation such a strike could cause.
