No, That 'Mountain Sized Asteroid' Wont Hit Us, Says NASA

You may have seen some headlines this week like "Mountain-Sized Asteroid is Heading for Earth!" or "Dangerous Asteroid Headed our Way," but you shouldn't trust the hype. According to NASA's Near-Earth Object Program (NEOP) office, that huge asteroid heading our way isn't even close to being a threat.

"Some recent press reports have suggested that an asteroid designated 2014 UR116, found on October 27, 2014, at the MASTER-II observatory in Kislovodsk, Russia, represents an impact threat to the Earth," the NASA office said in a statement on Monday.

"While this approximately 400-meter sized asteroid has a three year orbital period around the Sun and returns to the Earth's neighborhood periodically, it does not represent a threat because its orbital path does not pass sufficiently close to the Earth's orbit," the NEOP added.

Essentially what they are saying here is that 2014 UR116 - the size of a small mountain - is no out-of-control asteroid that could potentially spell doomsday for Earth or any other planet in our solar system in the immediate future. It is currently stuck in an orbital track that doesn't cross Earth's own path. In this way, we can compare them to trains, where unless there's a derailment, no train will ever strike another just because their tracks are close.

So why all the hubbub? A lot of it may have to do with video recently released by the Russian space agency Roscosmos entitled "Asteroids Attack." (Scroll to read on...)

[Телестудия Роскосмоса - TV Roscomos]

Completely in Russian, the documentary-like short film includes some quotes from Vladimir Lipunov, one of the lead scientists who discovered 2014 UR116 this past October, that when paired with frightening scenes and foreboding music, seems to be spelling doomsday for Earth.

"We should track it constantly. Because if we have a single mistake, there will be a catastrophe. The consequences can be very serious," he said.

However, it's important to note that Lipunov is concerned about abnormally large debris from the asteroid, not the massive body itself.

While tracking a doomsday-sized asteroid is exceptionally easy for programs like the NEOP, tracking smaller bits that can still make it through the Earths atmosphere, like the 2013 Chelyabinsk meteor, for example, are far harder to predict, and still pose a threat to people and homes.

You can find out more about that event, and the NEOP's stunningly low identification rate for smaller threatening asteroids, here.

 For more great nature science stories and general news, please visit our sister site, Headlines and Global News (HNGN).