21,3,2014 THE DAY THIS ASTEROID COULD BLAST US ALL BACK INTO THE MIDDLE AGES.

IT WOULD destroy an area the size of Belgium in one and a half seconds and plunge the world back into the Dark Ages.

The giant lump of space rock racing towards Earth today at 75,000 miles an hour would unleash a force 20million times more powerful than the atom bomb dropped on Hiroshima in 1945.

If it ends up crashing into us on March 21 2014, that is.

A direct hit by the huge asteroid would send billions of tons of dust into the sky, blocking out the sun, causing plant life to perish and livestock to starve.

The effect on human life, too, would be devastating.

But perhaps we needn't worry too much - because scientists say the chances of it hitting us are just 1 in 909,000.

Asteroid 2003 QQ47, two thirds of a mile wide, was first spotted by astronomers in Mexico 10 days ago and is hurtling towards us at 20 miles a second.

Stargazers have a chance to track it for the next two months as it passes within visible range of Earth.

Such asteroids are chunks of rock left over from the formation of our solar system 4.5billion years ago. Most are kept at a safe distance in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

But the gravitational influence of the big planets can nudge them out of these safe orbits and send them plunging towards the Earth.

Astrophysics expert Dr Alan Fitzsimmons of Queen's University, Belfast - who advises the UK NEO (Near Earth Objects) Information Centre in Leicester - is optimistic that Earth will come through the latest asteroid scare unscathed.

HE says: "There is some uncertainty about where it is going.

"In all probability, within the next month we will know its future orbit with an accuracy which will mean we will be able to rule out any impact.

"Previously, we have had several asteroids which have had much higher probabilities of colliding with the Earth in the next 100 years and they have almost all been ruled out."

But others are convinced it is only a matter of time before we face Armageddon. Liberal Democrat MP and sky-watcher Lembit Opik says: "I have said for years that the chances of an asteroid having an impact which could wipe out most of the human race is 100 per cent."

He has raised his worries in the Commons and successfully campaigned for an all-party task force to assess the potential risk.

Opik - who helped set up the Spaceguard UK facility to track near-Earth objects from Knighton, Powys - admits: "It does sound like a science fiction story and I may sound like one of these guys who walks up and down with a sandwich board saying the end of the world is nigh, but the end is nigh." Asteroids have long been a source of fascination for scientists and range in size from tiny dust particles to huge objects nearly 600 miles across.

The U.S. space agency Nasa has launched several space missions to investigate them.

In 2000, a satellite went into orbit around the near-Earth asteroid Eros, and a year later made a soft landing on it.

More than 100,000 asteroids have been classified since the first was spotted by Italian astronomer Guiseppe Piazzi in 1801.

Some contain carbon-bearing compounds and scientists think they could hold the key to creation. Giant meteors hitting the planet could have delivered chemicals which kick-started life on Earth. But now asteroid 2003 QQ47 could end man's fragile reign.

Spaceguard director Jay Tate explains: "In the longer term the problem of being hit by an asteroid willbe the amount of material that is injected into the Earth's atmosphere.

"Within two or three days the surface of the Earth will be cold and dark. And it is the dark that is the problem, because the plants will begin to die out.

"At best guess, we will probably lose about 25 per cent of the human population of the planet in the first six months or so.

"The rest of us are basically back to the Middle Ages. We have got no power, no communications, no infrastructure. We are back to hunter-gathering."

Reassuringly, he adds: "But after a year or two things will get better.

"And after a few centuries everything will settle down again - while we wait for the next one."

In the event, he says, 2003 QQ47 will almost certainly miss us. But there are hundreds of undiscovered asteroids hurtling around, and it is only a matter of time before another big one wipes out the human race.

TATE wants a worldwide monitoring project to identify any potential threat. "If we can find them early enough then we can tackle them," he says.

But he warns that if we do spot an asteroid making a bee-line for Earth we can't just blow it out of the sky with nuclear bombs, as in the movies Armageddon and Deep Impact.

"The Bruce Willis solution of blowing it up would make no sense," he says. "It would turn a cannon ball into a cluster bomb."

Instead the rock could be knocked off course using lasers or small unmanned spacecraft.

Astronomer Sir Patrick Moore says we might be able to divert a threatening asteroid by exploding a nuclear device close to it.

"This would be wiser than trying to break it up," he says. "If we shattered it, the remains of the asteroid would turn into the cosmic equivalent of shrapnel.

"But the danger of 2003 QQ47 is so slight that there is no reason to consider such drastic methods.

"The asteroid may well swing past us many times, but I can assure you that you can go to bed on March 21 2014 without fear of being woken by the arrival of a missile from outer space.

"Don't panic! Our unwelcome visitor will almost certainly glide past us and continue its never-ending journey around the sun."

Bookmakers William Hill are willing to take bets at odds of 909,000-1 that 2003 QQ47 will snuff out mankind.

After all, as spokesman Graham Sharpe says happily: "If the asteroid does wipe out life on Earth we probably won't have to worry about paying out to winning customers."

CAPTION(S):

DON'T PANIC: Sir Patrick Moore; By PAUL BYRNE; PAGE 6 DAILY MIRROR, Wednesday, September 3, 2003