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Hawking explained his fears in Brief Answers to Big Questions – his latest book, published this week after the authors' deaths.
The physicist said throughout his life that the catastrophic space rocks monitored by NASA threatened humanity and any other intelligent civilization existing in our universe.
And in his final reflections, the scientist, who died at the age of 76, contemplated scenarios in which human life could not continue to exist on Earth.
He wrote about the threat. nuclear war, climate change and the many dangers lurking in the depths of space
The late cosmologist said, "The universe is a violent place. Stars engulf planets, supernovae launch deadly rays into space, black holes jostle and asteroids jostle at hundreds of kilometers per second.
"While these phenomena do not make the space very attractive, but these are precisely the reasons why we should venture into space instead of staying put.
"An asteroid collision would be something against which we have no defense.
"The last major collision of this type with us occurred about 66 million years ago. it is thought that this has wiped out the dinosaurs, and it will happen again.
"This is not science fiction; it is guaranteed by the laws of physics and probabilities. "
The last known asteroidal impact leveled vast expanses of the Siberian Tunguska Forest in 1908.
PREDICTION: Professor Stephen Hawking stated that an asteroid could destroy the Earth. (Pic: Getty)
DESTRUCTION: Scientists monitor the sky looking for asteroids that may threaten the Earth (Pic: Getty)
A very small asteroid struck the Chelyabinsk Oblast in Russia in 2013, wounding 1,000 people with shards of glbad caused by the explosion of the asteroid in the sky.
Our solar system is filled with gigantic space rocks, some of which are more than one kilometer away.
We follow the movements of about 90% of these, which would wipe out humanity as they sink into the Earth.
This means that a large number of rogue rocks could collide with our planet.
Michel said: "We know only 15 or 20% of objects whose size is greater than a few hundred meters."
IMPACT: A mbadive meteor crashed against the Russian city of Chelyabinsk in 2013 (Image: IG)
DANGER: The dinosaurs died out when a huge asteroid crashed into the Earth (Pic: Getty )
The astronomer Patrick Michel has already said: "If these bodies impact the Earth, they can cause regional damage, damage to a whole country, even a continent."
There are several ways to fight asteroids.
The first would involve a "gravity tractor", which is essentially a spaceship designed to pull the rock on a new trajectory using its own gravitational force.
Other would involve blasting the space rock with some kind of projectile to try to direct it on a new course, or even explode with a nuclear bomb.
However, this could turn against humanity as it would cause fragments of radioactive rocks on the planet.
Astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker is an expert on asteroids.
LIVING MEMORY: Lucy and Timothy, the children of Professor Hawking, at the launch of the book (Pic: Getty)
"A collision of asteroids would not be a defense "
Hawking
She discovered Comet Showmaker – Levy 9, who broke up and then plunged spectacularly into Jupiter.
She called for a more in-depth study of the space rocks of the end of the world.
"The more we learn about all these things the more we can prepare ourselves to prevent an impact that would be dangerous for us."
Global disasters involving six-mile (10-km) asteroids seem to strike less often than all the 10 million years.
One of the death dinosaurs was probably caused by these past impacts.
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