"First Valentine's Day where everyone gets smashed": Asteroid hitting Earth in 2046 report sparks meme fest online 

On February 2, NASA discovered an asteroid roughly the size of an Olympic swimming pool and said that it has a "small chance" of colliding with Earth in 23 years. The potential crash date is expected to be on Valentine's Day in 2046, according to NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

According to data projections provided by the European Space Agency, this asteroid has a 1 in 625 chance of hitting Earth. On the other hand, NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Sentry system calculated the odds to be 1 in 560.

Upon hearing of this potential crash on Valentine's Day, social media users took to Twitter to share memes and jokes about the irony of the event. One Twitter user said:

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"That beats flowers and candy": Netizens react to the small risk asteroid hitting Earth in 2046

Social media users have taken over the internet with hilarious memes in response to NASA's announcement of the Valentine's Day hit.

Some Twitter users are ready for the space object to hit Earth sooner than expected and aren't afraid to say so. Here are some of the reactions:

Others had a hilarious outlook on their Valentine's Day plans.

Some users, in a parody of upcoming gender identities, said that it was wrong to assume that the space object identifies as an asteroid.

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The asteroid named 2023 DW is on NASA's risk list

The space rock is the only object on NASA's risk list that ranks 1 out of 10 on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale. The scale is used to estimate a metric for narrowing down the projected risk of an object that is predicted to hit Earth—all the other objects on the risk list rank at 0 on the Torino scale.

The 2023 DW tops the risk list, but according to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a ranking of 1 means,

"The chance of collision is extremely unlikely with no cause for public attention or public concern.”

A ranking of 0 means the "likelihood of a collision is zero or is so low as to be effectively zero.” Davide Farnocchia, a navigation engineer at the Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said:

“This object is not particularly concerning."

NASA officials have warned the public that the odds of impact could be largely impacted as more observations come onto the scene. The 2023 DW observations are still being collected, and additional analysis is being performed.

NASA Asteroid Watch took to Twitter on Tuesday, March 7, and said:

“Often when new objects are first discovered. It takes several weeks of data to reduce the uncertainties and adequately predict their orbits years into the future.”

They claimed that it is common for newly discovered objects to appear more threatening when first noticed.

Meanwhile, the Center for Near Earth Object Studies noted on its website:

“Because orbits stemming from very limited observation sets are more uncertain it is more likely that such orbits will ‘permit’ future impacts. However, such early predictions can often be ruled out as we incorporate more observations and reduce the uncertainties in the object’s orbit. Most often, the threat associated with a specific object will decrease as additional observations become available.”

In an email to CNN, Davide Farnocchia said:

“But then the object will remain observable for weeks (even months with larger telescopes) so we can get plenty of observations as needed."

According to NASA's data, the asteroid is roughly 160 feet in diameter. 2023 DW orbits the sun and has 10 predicted close approaches to Earth. The nearest landing is on February 14, 2046, and approximately nine others are between 2047 and 2054.

The asteroid travels at 15.5 miles per second at a distance of more than 11 million miles from Earth.