END OF THE WORLD?
The world may just end on 26 August, 2032, just nineteen years from now.
Ukranian astronomers have discovered a 410-meter rock which will destroy all life on the planet if it hits. It’s fifty times more powerful than the biggest nuclear bomb, the scientists said, and it’s one of the two most dangerous asteroids ever recorded. On collision, it will generate 2500 megatons of TNT energy, enough to fry all living things on the planet – save for perhaps certain strains of viruses and bacteria.
But before you begin scampering to collect all your valuables, we should tell you that the chance of collision is one in 63000. To quote Don Yeoman, an astronomer at NASA, ‘the current probability of no collision is 99.998 per cent.’ The most likely scenario is that the rock will pass us by, albeit at a frighteningly close distance of just two kilometres.
Astronomers will continue to monitor the movement of the asteroid, and will be able to give us more accurate chances of Earth’s survival in 2028. If it happens to veer course and head straight towards our planet, we may look at possibilities of countering the incoming renegade with weapons of our own. Ironically, warheads that we’ve designed to use on each other may come to good use in negating an intergalactic threat.
Or if Bruce Willis were still alive at the time, we can send him up with his ragtag bunch of astronauts so that they can sort it out for us.
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