Leading Chinese astronomers have said they see "little chance" of an asteroid collision with the earth in 2019, and refute some of the recent unsupported reports on the issue.
Overseas media recently reported a two-kilometer wide asteroid, dubbed 2002 NT7, could collide with the earth on February 1, 2019.
"Such reports are irresponsible," said Jiang Xiezhu, vice president of China's National Astronomical Observatories (NAO), in an exclusive interview with Xinhua.
The asteroid was seen through a New Mexico telescope in the United States on July 9 by astronomers from the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Project.
It was then about 135 million kilometers (84 million miles) from the earth and was estimated to be on a 837-day trajectory around the sun, said Jiang.
Doctor Zhu Jin, a NAO researcher, said two weeks of observation was simply not enough to figure out the asteroid's potential path.
"It needs further observation but poses no threat at the moment," he said. "Not until more observation data enables scientists to narrow down its estimated trajectory can any predictions be made."
Astronomers worldwide have observed 375,000 asteroids since the first was discovered by Italian astronomers in 1801.
They have worked out the precise trajectories for 44,000 of these asteroids, none of which is likely to pose any real threat to the earth in the near future, said Zhu.
(Xinhua News Agency July 26, 2002)
