Schoolboy corrects Nasa on asteroid threat

A 13-YEAR-OLD German schoolboy corrected Nasa’s estimates on the chances of an asteroid colliding with Earth after spotting the boffins had miscalculated.

Nico Marquardt used telescopic findings from the Institute of Astrophysics in Potsdam (AIP) to calculate that there was a one in 450 chance that the Apophis asteroid will collide with Earth.

Nasa had previously estimated the chances at only one in 45,000 but told its sister organisation, the European Space Agency (ESA), that the schoolboy got it right.