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At least we don't have to worry as much about the big asteroids |
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Mar 09, 2007 at 10:27 AM |
A story in today's Washington Post says a NASA report has found that it's less likely than previously thought that Earth will be hit by a "planet-killing" asteroid.
Phew! But wait, there's more. The same report says it may be more likely that smaller, football-field-sized hurtling subplanetary objects might slam into our planet.
NASA's Pete Worden is quoted in the article as saying "researchers have calculated the risk of 'death by asteroid' to be about the same as dying in an airplane crash if you fly once a year. That calculation includes both the likelihood that the event will happen and the number of people who would be killed if it did."
Great. Instead of worrying about the end of life as we know it, we can let our anxieties run wild in the knowledge that the odds are pretty good---at least on the cosmic scale---that something equivalent to a multimegaton nuclear device might wipe out a city or swamp a coastal area with a massive tsunami.
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