Los Angeles: A latest NASA survey on Thursday detected 93 per cent of the largest near-Earth asteroids, which reduced the risk of an unwarranted impact with Earth.
The findings indicated that there were significantly fewer near-Earth asteroids in the mid-size range than previously thought, roughly about 19,500.
Astronomers, however, said that more research was needed to analyse the asteroids, as they got closer to earth.
The space agency said on Thursday that its sky-mapping spacecraft called WISE discovered 911 of the 981 largest asteroids predicted by models.
The scientists now estimate there are about 19,500 asteroids between 330 feet (100 metres) and 3,300 feet (100 metres) wide, down from 35,000.
WISE was launched in 2009 to map the whole sky in search of hidden asteroids, comets and other celestial objects. The NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California manages the mission.
(With Additional Inputs from AP)
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