36
Put it on your calendar: February 5, 2040 may be the end of the world.
It turns out that there’s a giant asteroid hurtling through space, and there’s one chance in 625 that it will smash into the Earth, which isn’t high, but isn’t zero, either.
It’s 460 feet wide, and scientists are already talking about “how to deflect it,” including possibly with a nuclear weapon, a la “Deep Impact.”
“The international community may be faced with the difficult decision of choosing between an expensive multikinetic impactor or a nuclear explosive,” Near Earth Object expert Russell Schweickart tells the Christian Science Monitor.
