The world can breath easy. A giant asteroid is not hurtling towards Earth about to wipe out much of the Americas, NASA has felt compelled to explain following a swirl of online rumours, reports AFP from Washington.
Blogs and off-beat news sites have claimed a major asteroid will impact earth in mid-to-late September near Puerto Rico, causing major destruction throughout the region.
But that theory is entirely baseless, NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a post this week, trying to damp down the Doomsday predictions.
“There is no scientific basis—not one shred of evidence—that an asteroid or any other celestial object will impact Earth on those dates,” said the manager of the Near-Earth Object office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Paul Chodas.