Newly discovered asteroid has reduced odds of striking Earth - Fox News

This comes after NASA revealed the asteroid, called 2023 DW, could hit Earth on Valentine's Day in 2046, although the odds were already slim.

Last week, NASA's risk scale ranked the odds of the asteroid hitting Earth as "extremely unlikely" and said there was "no cause for public concern."

The likelihood that the asteroid hits Earth is even less than the one in 847 previously believed, according to ESA's planetary defense office head Richard Moissl.

"We tend to be a little more conservative, but it definitely appears to now have a downward trend in probability," NASA's planetary defense officer Lindley Johnson told the news outlet.

Johnson added that new observations often drop the "uncertainty region" where the asteroid will reach its closest point to Earth.

In the event that the asteroid does strike Earth in 2046, there would be about a 70% chance it landed in the Pacific Ocean, but it could also hit the U.S., Australia or South-East Asia, Moissl said.