Astronomers monitoring near-Earth objects are playing down the chances of a newly discovered asteroid hitting Earth in 2014.

They say that there is a one in 909,000 chance of asteroid 2003 QQ47 impacting our planet.

The chances of a catastrophe are likely to become even slimmer once more measurements of the asteroid's orbit have been made.

The current odds are based on 51 observations made since the giant rock was spotted by a US programme in New Mexico on 24 August...