Asteroid has near-collision with Earth

An asteroid hurtling through space came within a hair's breadth -- in astronomical terms, at least -- of crashing into the Earth early on Monday, US scientists said.

Apollo Asteroid 2004 XP14 was discovered by Lincoln Laboratory in Lexington, Massachusetts, a research facility which part of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and which claims the title of "the world's principal detector of asteroids", said Roger Sudbury, a spokesman for the lab.

"We were the discoverer" said Sudbury of the Apollo Asteroid 2004 XP14, which passed some 432,000 kilometres from the Earth at 0955 IST.

The distance between the two bodies was slightly greater than that between the Earth and the moon -- a close shave in the vastness of outer space.

Asteroid has near-collision with Earth