Categories: Asteroids

“Killer” Asteroid will Miss

Additional observations from astronomers have decreased the likelihood to virtually zero that Asteroid 2003 qq47 will strike the Earth in 2014. The asteroid was first discovered on August 24 by the LINEAR observatory and astronomers put its odds at 1 in 909,000 at 2003qq47 hitting the Earth, but the additional observations on Monday night extended those odds to 1 in 2.2 million, which is below the background risk of asteroid strikes on any given year. If the 1.3 km asteroid were to strike the Earth, it would cause immense damage on a continental scale… but it won’t.

Fraser Cain

Fraser Cain is the publisher of Universe Today. He's also the co-host of Astronomy Cast with Dr. Pamela Gay. Here's a link to my Mastodon account.

Recent Posts

Neutron Stars With Less Mass Than A White Dwarf Might Exist, and LIGO and Virgo Could Find Them

Theoretically a neutron star could have less mass than a white dwarf. If these light…

45 minutes ago

Webb Observes Protoplanetary Disks that Contradict Models of Planet Formation

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) was specifically intended to address some of the greatest…

16 hours ago

James Webb’s Big Year for Cosmology

The James Webb Space Telescope was designed and built to study the early universe, and…

2 days ago

A Mission to Dive Titan’s Lakes – and Soar Between Them

Titan is one of the solar system's most fascinating worlds for several reasons. It has…

2 days ago

Top Astronomy Events for 2025

Catching the best sky watching events for the coming year 2025. Comet C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS…

2 days ago

Is the Universe a Fractal?

For decades cosmologists have wondered if the large-scale structure of the universe is a fractal:…

3 days ago