10 December 2005

Tempting fate

Even if there's only a 1 in 5500 chance that it will hit the Earth, when you learn about a wayward asteroid 40 times the diameter of the one that probably leveled a big chunk of Siberia, no matter how clever you think it is, don't go naming it Apophis. Okay?

Via Warren Ellis.

2 comments:

Reya Mellicker said...

There are many thousands of asteroids that come close to the earth. It happens all the time. From what I've read we can't detect most of them, which is probably good for the nerves of the people at NASA.

Bill Bryson's *A Short History of Nearly Everything has a fantastic chapter about asteroids and impact craters.

Life is short. Carpe Diem.

Thomas Roche said...

I love that Bryson book. The chapter on asteroid impacts (and the one on Yellowstone's supergeyser) gave me some sleepless nights.