Astronomers Discover 410-Meter Asteroid That might Hit Earth in 2032

A team of Ukraine astronomers has discovered a potentially catastrophic asteroid that they say will pass by or collide with Earth in 2032 generating a blast that could be 50 times more powerful than any nuclear bomb till date.

The asteroid named 2013 TV135 was discovered in the Camelopardalis (Giraffe) constellation by the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, Southern Ukraine, reports RT.Com.

By Thursday the discovery of the hazardous asteroid was confirmed by other observatories located in Italy, Spain, the U.K. and Russia. The discovery was confirmed by the space agency NASA, and it added the newly discovered 2013 TV135 to its list of near-Earth Objects.

"On the night of October 12, I was watching the Giraffe constellation, it was an in-depth monitoring as part of the comet search program," Gennady Borisov from the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory told Itar-Tass news agency­­. "This is when the asteroid... was discovered. The first observations show that it moves quickly and is relatively close.

The good news is that the chance of this massive asteroid colliding with Earth is very slim. The chances of direct impact are one in 63,000. There is likelihood that the asteroid orbit will miss Earth by some 2.7 million kilometers.

This news went viral and even the Russian Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Rogozin took to Twitter to caution people of the dangerous asteroid and the threat it posed. According to him, it's a great challenge for the national space industry.

Life Вести.Ru: "400-метровый астероид грозит взорвать Землю" https://t.co/tZ6FlBjFnX Ну вот и сверхцель для отечественной космонавтики

- Dmitry Rogozin (@Rogozin) October 17, 2013

Timur Kryachko from Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, told RIA Novosti new agency that scientists can evaluate the impact of the asteroid only by 2028.

NASA's NEO Program reports that currently, there is one asteroid that has the same rating as 2013 TV135, which is the 2007 VK184. Being 130 meters wide, the chances of it colliding with Earth on June 3, 2048 are 1 in 1,820.

Don Yeoman, manager of the administration's Near-Earth Object Profram Office said, "The current probability of no impact in 2032 [is] about 99.998 per cent. This is a relatively new discovery. With more observations, I fully expect we will be able to significantly reduce, or rule out entirely, any impact probability for the foreseeable future."