Asteroid could hit Earth in 2029 - Russian astronomer

An asteroid, discovered in 2004, could pose a threat to Earth in 2029, the director of the Institute of Astronomy said Monday.

Boris Shustov said at an international space forum in Moscow that the Apophis asteroid, which is due to cross earth's orbit in 2029 at a height of 27,000 km (17,000 miles), could under certain conditions hit Earth in 2029.

The explosion could surpass the famous Tunguska explosion of June 30, 1908, which affected a 2,150 square kilometer (830 sq miles) area of Russia felling over 80 million trees in the Krasnoyarsk Territory in Siberia.

The meteoroid's air blast was estimated to be between 10 and 20 megatons in TNT equivalent or 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. The explosion caused a shockwave around 5.0 on the Richter scale.