In other less-than-comforting news, a planet-killing asteroid has been spotted in the solar system, and scientists aren’t quite sure if it’ll be a threat to us.
The comfortingly named planet-killer is one of three major objects found floating in the orbit of Venus and Earth. The glare of the sun has made them extremely difficult to identify until now, when scientists in Chile carefully timed an observation of that region of space. It’s estimated to be about 1.5km across, making it more than capable of causing a mass-extinction event on Earth.
Thankfully, the new finds aren’t expected to cause any issues for us in the near future, so we can leave our great-grandkids to deal with it. But astronomers were quick to point out that over a thousand similar near-Earth objects over one km long have been found.
Asteroid detection is a major focus for NASA, which recently proved that we’re capable of altering the path of an asteroid with its successful DART Mission in early October.
If all else fails, we’ve got Bruce Willis.
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