By Adam Hollingworth
The asteroid Apophis could be on a collision course with Earth and has a one-in-233,000 chance of hitting the planet in 2036.
As a precaution, Russian scientists want to met with their European, American and Chinese counterparts, to discuss a possible space mission to the asteroid.
Scientists hope to send up a spacecraft to tag the asteroid with a transponder. This would allow them to plot a more precise path of its orbit and within five years they would know whether they need to take drastic action.
Grant Christie from Auckland's Stardome Observatory says in a worst-case scenario, there are several possible options that could be used to push the asteroid off-course.
"One is to send a satellite up there with a nuclear bomb onboard and you can go bang next to it and give it a bit of a push," he explains. "People have come up with other ways of like hitting it with paint bombs, spraying one side white the other side dark. The difference in the sunlight between those two sides tends to push the thing slightly subtly."
But if the asteroid does impact with the planet, Mr Christie says the consequences would be disastrous.
"To give you some idea of what sort of impact Apophis would have, astronomers have worked out it's the equivalent of lopping the whole of the summit of Mount Eden - about 30 billion tonnes - and then flinging it to Wellington in about 20 seconds."
Apophis would explode with the power of a thousand nuclear bombs. Scientists argue that spending a few hundred million dollars now will prove to be money well spent in the long-term.
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