David Morrison, senior scientist at the NASA Astrobiology Institute at the Ames Research Center, also studies rocks like 2002 NT7, an estimated 1,100 asteroids larger than 1 kilometer (0.62 miles) collectively called Near Earth Objects, or NEOs. More than 600 of these large NEOs have been found.

Like many of his colleagues, Morrison thinks the hype and inaccuracies of the British press are a problem for just about everyone.

"The NEO community and the public both are harmed by exaggerated or false stories, because they tend to trivialize the real search for hazardous NEOs, and they diminish public confidence in the folks who are trying to do this in a responsible and honest manner," Morrison said.

The following e-mail, sent to Morrison by a young resident of the United Kingdom, is "the reason the position of our Brit 'friends' is unethical," Morrison said:

The sensationalism perceived by scientists was fueled in part, some said, by statements made by a handful of scientists who would leverage minor asteroid threats for political gain -- to get a funding boost for the overall search effort.

Nearly all asteroid experts agree that an expanded search program -- more telescopes paid for by the United Kingdom or Australia, for example -- would be beneficial. Meanwhile, most of the effort is funded by NASA, at the rate of about $3 million per year.

Benny Peiser, a professor of neocatastrophism at Liverpool John Moores University, is one of the individuals not afraid to leverage the press against the politicians.

Peiser runs a scholarly newsletter that discusses asteroid threats and, in his words, helps about 200 journalists "get the information in a rational, clear, and yet sometimes controversial format." Asteroid data posted on the web by NASA and the European research group, on the other hand, are not accompanied by adequate explanations for journalists, he said.

Peiser sees himself as merely a messenger who shouldn't be shot.

Before asteroid 2002 NT7 had been reported in the popular media last week, Peiser told the BBC this: "This asteroid has now become the most threatening object in the short history of asteroid detection."

While technically true, the quote sounded ominous without the proper caveats, chiefly that "most threatening" was relative to other asteroids that also had very low odds of possible future impacts.

Peiser's quote figured prominently at the top of the BBC story and was, it appears, excerpted to become the main theme of the Reuters and Sky News stories, as well as others that followed the next day in British newspapers.

Peiser agrees he's vocal, but he considers himself an anti-alarmist.

"I always request that the information I provide to reporters should be fairly balanced, so that the potentially frightening information is balanced against the much more reassuring information," Peiser told SPACE.com afterward. He notes that most of the articles in the British media did quote astronomers and did draw their information from scientists, so it's "far too simplistic to blame the media."

He also says "the British press just love these stories, but is almost never 'doom-and-gloom,' rather 'let's have a good time as long as it lasts!' It's a very dry, yet healthy sense of humor that can see the funny side even of the most serious problems we face as humans. The problem with many Americans is they lack this light-heartedness."

Peiser does not think the stories have harmed the NEO community of scientists.