The asteroid, which was officially discovered this spring, had been believed to have a small but non-zero probability of impacting the Earth in the mid-21st century. However, German amateur astronomers Arno Gnadig and Andreas Doppler have located a 44-year-old photo showing a weak image of the asteroid. Based on this photo, astronomers now calculate that the asteroid will miss the Earth by a wide margin.

Contrary to earlier concerns that asteroid 1999 AN10 could hit Earth in 2044, Brian Marsden and Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory note that the asteroid will actually be on the other side of the sun at that time.

Moreover, a predicted near miss in 2027 is now expected to be a wide miss, with the asteroid coming no closer than 240,000 miles from Earth. The latter figure is roughly the distance between Earth and the moon.