Astronomers announced recently that at the end of January 2008 Mars could be hit by a newly discovered asteroid. The huge space rock is known as 2007 WD5 and it has a 1 in 75 chance of colliding with Mars at the end of next month.

2007 WD5 is about 100 meters in diameter and it is broadly similar in size to the asteroid that hit the Siberian forests about 100 years ago, in 1908. In that case, the space rock felled roughly 80 million trees over 810 square miles.

NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program’s scientists have been tracking this asteroid since they detected it in late November. Astronomers were surprised at the “extremely unusual” odds of collision.

Steve Chesley, an astronomer with the Near Earth Object Program at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said that space researchers usually work with “really long odds” when they track threatening space objects, but in this case an asteroid has a 1 in 75 chance of colliding with Mars and this is very unusual. “We know that it’s going to fly by Mars and most likely going to miss, but there’s a possibility of an impact,” added Steve Chesley.

However, if 2007 WD5 does hit the Red Planet, it will give astronomers a rare opportunity to study the effects of such a strike, especially that NASA’s Opportunity rover is close to the spot where the asteroid would probably hit the planet (somewhere near the Martian equator). The likely impact will not be visible with the naked eye or domestic telescopes.

The Red Planet is currently the brightest object in the night sky after the Moon, as it is very close to Earth. This Tuesday, the planet was just 55 million miles away from Earth, the closest it will be until 2016.

However, we should not be afraid of this likely collision. The Russian Academy of Science said on Friday that if 2007 WD5 does hit Mars, the collision will not affect Earth.