The 1998 movie "Armageddon" depicted the possible end of the world due to an asteroid hitting Earth. There are rumors on social media about such an occurrence. Will it happen? We actually had a close call last March 5!

One asteroid whizzed by the Earth with a distance that was closer than the moon. In astronomical terms, that is similar to 'missing by a hair.'

From The Daily Mail: "An asteroid the size of three double decker buses and travelling at at 33,000 mph came closer to Earth than the Moon last March 5.  

At 21:07 GMT (16:07 EST), the asteroid made its closest approach, reaching a distance of less than 217,000 miles (350,000 km), or nine-tenths of the distance between the moon and Earth.

Scientists predicted it would avoid a collision with Earth, but the 98ft (30 metre) asteroid nevertheless offered spectacular views for anyone with a good telescope in their back garden."

The asteroid was assigned as 2014 DX 110. Tech Times painted a grimmer picture:

"The large body of rock and metal is traveling at nearly 33,200 miles per hour. If it were on a collision course with our home world, the results could be catastrophic for any region it struck.
2014 DX110 was discovered by astronomers working as part of the PanSTARRS survey. This body is classified as an Apollo asteroid."

 Asteroids are given classifications by astronomers. From The Daily Mail: "2014 DX110 is an Apollo class asteroid, which means it has an Earth-crossing orbit.

There are currently 240 known Apollos, but it is believed that there are at least 2000 Earth-crossers with diameters of 1 km or larger.

If it hit Earth, an impacting Apollo asteroid would make a crater about 10-20 times its size.  

An asteroid 1 km in size could throw so much dust into the atmosphere that sunlight would be blocked for several years."

In other news, there is a buzz on social media that had Doomsday cults active again. The claim is that there will be an asteroid hitting Earth on March 21. Phil Plait of Slate promptly debunks this:

"Twitter, Facebook, and other social media are spreading a story that a large asteroid named 2003 QQ47 might impact the Earth next week, specifically on March 21, 2014.

Let me be very clear right away: Nope. It won't. This story is totally wrong! Well, the asteroid does exist, but it won't hit us next week, and in fact can't hit the Earth for at least a century. The truth is the asteroid will safely pass us on March 26 of this year, never getting closer than 19 million kilometers (nearly 12 million miles)-about 50 times farther away than the Moon!"

So don't press the panic button or quit your job yet. We would still be around for a while.