No Deep Impact Armageddon

You can relax now.  NASA has largely dismissed a Russian report that an asteroid larger than two football fields could hit Earth by 2036.

Free Beer & Hot Wings discussed this story about a asteroid named Apophis yesterday morning and during the happy hour which caused my curiosity, so I did some research.

 "99942 Apophis," is a 900-foot-long asteroid has had the attention of scientists for some time. According to an article from SPACE.com, back in 2004, NASA scientists announced that Apophis could hit the planet in 2029. But, upon further review, that prediction was later retracted. 

Recently asteroid collision talk came back into the news when Russia announced that they predicted 99942 Apophis may hit Earth on April 13, 2036. NASA acknowledges that there is a chance this may happen, but it is far from likely with estimates the odds at around 1 in 250,000.

Don't worry — scientists say that Apophis will probably disintegrate before hitting earth and NASA does have a backup plan. Should the need arise, the space agency will construct machinery to change the asteroid's orbit, we'll just need Morgan Freeman,  Bruce Willis, Ben Affleck and an Aerosmith song playing in the background!