They were talking about is at great length on Radio 4 earlier today. The scientists have found an asteroid that they think could collide with earth in 17 years time, however, it is currently too far away for them to be certain. They are reasonably confident that as the asteroid gets closer and they can measure the trajectory more acurately they will find that it is going to miss earth altogether.
The guy I heard talking abuot it this morning said that it had been spotted 3 weeks ago and they had been monitoring it carefully. He said it was the biggest threat they had so far detected, but that this did not really mean anything, as the current data was so inaccurate that they wouldn't be able to tell for quite a while yet what its exact course was likely to be. He also said that it was more than likely to miss us altogether, and by quite a significant margin at that.
