An asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool is heading towards Earth on Valentine’s Day 2046

SCIENTISTS have discovered an asteroid the size of an Olympic swimming pool that is expected to come dangerously close to Earth on Valentine’s Day 2046.

Nasa is keeping a close eye on the giant space rock after spotting it earlier this week.

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“We’ve been tracking a new asteroid called 2023 DW that has a very slim chance of hitting Earth in 2046,” Nasa said this week.

“When new objects are first discovered, weeks of data are often required to reduce uncertainties and adequately predict their orbits years into the future.”

Asteroid 2023 DW has a diameter of about 49 meters and is currently about 17 billion kilometers from Earth.

Orbit analysts will continue to monitor the asteroid and will update their predictions as more data comes in.

But Nasa said that even if the asteroid should hit Earth, it’s unlikely to cause a global catastrophe.

In 1908, an asteroid of similar size, about 50-60 meters in diameter, exploded over an eastern Siberian forest, killing three people, according to eyewitness accounts at the time.

The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs is said to have been between 10 and 15 kilometers wide.

So humans on the ground don’t have to worry about an extinction-level space rock just yet.

However, Nasa’s insane mission to throw an asteroid off course in a test run to save humanity last year actually worked, new images revealed earlier this month.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test, known as the DART, was the first-ever attempt to prevent a potentially devastating asteroid collision with Earth.

That means that even if a catastrophic asteroid were to collide with Earth, Nasa now has a backup plan — although it’s still being perfected.

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