article_snippet: Last year, the privately-funded B612 Foundation discovered that Earth is up to 10 times more likely to be hit than previously thought.
article_snippet: While the majority of the impacts occur either high up in the atmosphere, or in unpopulated areas including the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, the danger was still ever-present.
article_snippet: but, as yet, there is no chance of an impact scheduled for any point in future.
article_snippet: This “potential” to make close Earth approaches does not mean a PHA will impact Earth,’ said Nasa.
article_snippet: It only means there is a possibility for such a threat. '
article_snippet: By monitoring these PHAs and updating these PHAs orbits as new observations become available, we can better predict the close-approach statistics and thus these PHAs Earth-impact threat.
article_snippet: But speaking to the Express, Dr Bill Napier, professor of astronomy at the University of Buckinghamshire, warned there was a ‘very real risk’ of an object hitting Earth at some point in the future.
article_snippet: With something like 2014 YB35, Nasa are looking at a scale of global destruction, something that would pose a risk to the continuation of the planet,’ he said.
article_snippet: These events are however very rare
article_snippet: , it is the smaller yet still very damaging impacts which are a very real threat.
article_snippet: In December, more than 100 leading scientists and astronauts from Dr Brian May to Chris Hadfield signed a declaration asking for increased action to tackle objects that could end life on Earth.
article_snippet: The possibility of this scenario has been repeatedly hinted at recently by meteorites and fireballs spotted in the sky.
article_snippet: We are currently aware of less than one per cent of objects comparable to the one that impacted at Tunguska, and nobody knows when the next big one will hit.