According to the article, “The Sky is Falling” in TheAtlantic.com there are 5,388 Near-Earth asteroids and comets known to exist with 741 at least one-kilometer across or more. So whats chilling about this? NASA defines a global calamity asteroid as one one-kilometer across or more. That means we have 741 chances of Doomsday by astrological causes. Many scientist and geologist believe that this is what caused the mass extinction of the dinosaurs and the ice age. So you might be asking yourself, the chances of a collision are pretty low, so lets assume its not going to impact and just flyby, what then? According to Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in California, this exact scenario happened almost 13,000 years ago with the passing of two large space rocks. This flyby lead to erratic global climate changes and ultimately the extinction of many plant and animal species.
Earth asteroid impacts have been understated in the media and through our educational system, we need to rethink the idea that we are independent from the harms of the space system and realize that we are part of this system where harm can come beyond Earth. As tornadoes and tsunamis affect us on a micro-global scale, asteroids and comets affect us on a macro-global scale. Most of us think of the our existence as a one system entity where earth is the system and what goes on in the earth are the changes to the system. But we need to break that and start to image our reality as a two system entity where yes, we do have changes on the system on Earth but there is a larger system of the universe that be belong to. Both of these systems work simultaneously together and are dependent; We can’t ignore this system or else we wont be prepared when doomsday comes.
treacherous world of space rocks. Video taken from TheAtlantic.com
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