13-year-old German schoolboy Nico Marquardt grabbed worldwide headlines when he wrote a paper for a school project about the Apophis asteroid that NASA has been tracking refuting NASA's impact predictions. Apophis has an exceedingly minute chance of hitting the Earth according to NASA which pegs the likelihood of impact at 1 in 45,000.

Some reports on the findings Marquardt published claimed that NASA had been contacted on the numbers and further claimed that NASA agreed with the boys findings. NASA released a statement today denying that it had been contacted in regards to the boy’s findings and says it has had no correspondence with Marquardt regarding the Apophis asteroid.

NASA says in the statement that it has not changed its predictions for possible impact of Apophis with the Earth and still hold to the 1 in 45,000 estimate it originally offered. NASA says that the asteroid will not pass near the main belt of geosynchronous satellites in 2029 making the chance of the asteroid colliding with a satellite exceptionally remote. Someone tell Bruce Willis to stand down.

When Marquardt wrote the paper for a school assignment, he probably was only thinking of making a good grade, not making international headlines. The good news for Marquardt is a good grade is virtually insured and German publication Bild.de reports that the project won the boy the youth researcher award.