Space Agencies Tracking, Asteroid With 'Small Chance' , of Hitting Earth in 2046.<br />CNN reports that a newly-discovered <br />asteroid has a slight chance of impacting <br />Earth on Valentine's Day in 2046.<br />According to NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination <br />Office, the asteroid is about 160 feet in diameter, <br />close to the size of an Olympic swimming pool. .<br />Data projections by the European Space <br />Agency suggest that the asteroid has <br />a 1 in 625 chance of hitting Earth. .<br />However, CNN reports that NASA's Jet Propulsion <br />Laboratory's (JPL) Sentry system calculated <br />that the odds of impact are slightly greater. .<br />According to the Sentry system, <br />which tracks potential celestial threats, <br />the odds of collision are closer to 1 in 560. .<br />The chance of collision <br />is extremely unlikely with no cause <br />for public attention or public concern, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, via CNN.<br />This object is not <br />particularly concerning, Davide Farnocchia, navigation engineer at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, via CNN.<br />However, officials at NASA have warned that those <br />odds could be altered as more observations of the asteroid <br />are made and further analysis has been carried out.<br />Often when new objects are first <br />discovered, it takes several weeks of data <br />to reduce the uncertainties and adequately <br />predict their orbits years into the future, NASA Asteroid Watch, via Twitter.<br />The asteroid, first spotted on February 2, <br />is traveling at approximately 15.5 miles per second <br />and is currently over 11 million miles from Earth.
