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Asteroid could hit Earth

LINCOLN, N.M., Sept. 3 (UPI) -- An asteroid that could wipe out a continent is expected to make its way toward Earth in 2014, according to New Mexico astronomers.

The Near Earth Object Information Center in Lincoln, N.M., detected the asteroid last week and calculated it is two thirds of a mile wide with a mass of about 2.6 billion tons and could hit the Earth at 21 miles per second.

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However, the chance of it actually hitting Earth on March 21, 2014, currently are calculated at 1-in-909,000.

"In all probability, within the next month we will know its future orbit with an accuracy which will mean we will be able to rule out any impact," Alan Fitzsimmons, of Queen's University, in Belfast, Ireland, told the London Telegraph.

"This year, we have had several asteroids which have had much higher probabilities of colliding in the next 100 years and they have almost all been ruled out."

So far, numerous asteroids and comets have been estimated to crash into Earth, but as the time grew shorter and calculations were refined, the odds came down to zero.

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