Phew! Earth won't be hit by an asteroid in 28 years time
PA
Experts have said that an asteroid as wide as two football pitches believed to be on a collision course with earth no longer poses a significant threat.
Sky News reports that experts had previously believed that there was up to a one in 500 chance that the space rock would crash into Earth in February 2040.
However, when astronomers at NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office began to predict the asteroid's course, they found that it will pass no closer than 550,000 miles - more than twice as far away as the moon.
The Asteroid, which is known as 2011 AG5, has a diameter of 140 metres. It was found by astronomers at the top of Mount Lemmon in the Catalina Mountains, near Tuscon, Arizona, in January 2011.
It is one of more than 8,700 near-earth objects known to scientists.
Click on the image below to see some amazing scenes from space...
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