[ad_1]
Six asteroids will pass through Earth on January 20, which happens to be the inauguration day in the United States (via ZME Science). Fortunately, or unfortunately – depending on whether you have a nihilistic wish that 2021 is already over – asteroids will not strike our planet.
According to ZME science, the closest one will pass Earth at roughly the same distance as the Moon. You can view all asteroid data at NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
If you’re curious about the asteroids from the past that made it close enough to Earth for NASA to take note of, you can also check out that information in the link above. CNEOS is an organization that “calculates high precision orbits for near-Earth objects (NEOs), predicts their future movements and assesses their risk of impact”.
While zombie epidemics and cyberpunk fantasies of corporate greed destroying humanity are currently popular cultural visions of the apocalypse, asteroids hitting earth are another option. The Green Slime, Deep Impact, and Armageddon are all movies with asteroids posing a real existential threat to humanity. (The Green Slime is one of those good and bad movies – you shouldn’t be watching it for the plot, but its wonderful lack of plot.)
In actual history, an asteroid impact was likely one of the causes of a large extinction event on Earth. The Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event over 66 million years ago wiped out much of plant and animal life, effectively ended the era of dinosaurs, and brought us back to the era. Current Cenozoic, also known as the Age of Mammals.
If you’re curious about what a CNEOS response to a threatening asteroid would look like, check out its Hypothetical Impact Scenarios page. Note: The documents are brainstorming exercises around a hypothetical event and are not linked to real world events.
[ad_2]
Source link