Nasa forced to deny claims an asteroid will strike Earth next month

Nasa has been forced to deny claims that a devastating asteroid will strike Earth next month.

The US space agency noted that a number of postings online were "erroneously" claiming a disaster will happen between 15th and 28th September this year.

The viral rumours claimed that the impact would occur near Puerto Rico, destroying much of the US Atlantic and Gulf coasts, as well as much of Central and parts of South America.

Paul Chodas, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California said:

Mr Chodas insisted that if an object large enough to cause such catastrophic damage was on a collision course with Earth, "we would have seen something of it by now."

The Near Earth Object office said that all known "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids" have less than a 0.01% chance of hitting our homeworld in the next 100 years.

You can track all asteroids predicted to pass our planet in future at Nasa's Near-Earth Object website.