NASA has denied viral claims that an asteroid will strike Earth next month causing widespread devastation.
NASA has denied viral internet claims that an asteroid will strike Earth next month wreaking widespread devastation.
The space agency noted that a number of web postings are 'erroneously' claiming a disaster will happen between 15 and 28 September this year.
Rumour-mongers have said the cosmic strike would hit near Puerto Rico, destroying parts of the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts and Mexico, as well as Central and South America.
Conspiracy theorists suggested the US authorities were secretly making emergency plans for the impending catastrophe.
But NASA said no known celestial object has any credible chance of hitting Earth over the next century.
'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 Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
'If there were any object large enough to do that type of destruction in September, we would have seen something of it by now,' he added.
He said such doomsday stories seem to circulate all too often.
In 2011, there were rumours that the comet Elenin would hit Earth, despite NASA saying it posed no danger. It disintegrated harmlessly out in space.
The end of the Mayan calendar on 21 December 2012 also sparked apocalyptic asteroid warnings online.
Similar rumours spread this year surrounding asteroids 2004 BL86 and 2014 YB35.
Both bypassed Earth in January and March without incident, just as NASA noted it projected.
The space agency uses a variety of telescopes to detect objects passing within 30 million miles of Earth.
NASA's Near-Earth Object Program web page lists asteroids predicted to pass our planet in future.
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