Revealed: The 6 catastrophic asteroids on course to crash into Earth

One metre ( 3ft ) wide asteroid was spotted just eight hours before it burned up over the Philippines in a spectacular fireball.

Asteroids colliding with Earth are rarer and don't often come within Earth 's orbit.

Asteroid Bennu is wider than the Empire State Building is tall and weighs 200 times as much.

Bennu has a one in 2,700 chance of hitting Earth on September 24, 2182 .

An impact with Bennu would release energy equivalent to 1.4 billion tonnes of TNT .

At 4,265ft (1.3km ) in diameter and weighing 71 million tonnes , 1950 DA is 90 times that size.

This makes it the biggest asteroid that has a serious chance of hitting Earth .

If it were to hit, the collision would release energy equivalent to detonating 75 billion tons of TNT .

NASA and ESA have already begun testing methods for pushing dangerous asteroids off course including slamming satellites into their surfaces.

While big impacts are very rare, Dr Brown points out that 'asteroid impacts are a case of when, not if.' That is why space agencies around the world are investing huge funds into planetary defence projects. These include ESA 's DART mission which managed to knock an asteroid off course with kamikaze satellite in 2022 . Dr Brown adds: 'It is important that we continue to improve our ability to track these objects and work on measures to protect ourselves if they occur.'.