Asteroid to hit Earth

Is the end of the world nigh? Large asteroid predicted to collide into Earth

This isn’t expected to happen until the far-off year of 2182, when we and everyone else we know probably won’t be around to see it. So you can hold your horses before you start running out to the nearest supermarket to stock up on emergency tins, or streaking down the road with a new sense of ‘carpe diem’.

Scientists and researchers from the Universidad de Valladolid in Spain, have been monitoring a potentially hazardous asteroid with the use of mathematical models. First noticed in 1999, this asteroid is huge and it’s orbit is very close to Earth’s. They’ve predicted that it has a one-in-a-thousand chance of colliding into Earth in 2182 and that the impact of such a large impact could be extremely disastrous. So the question is, will this be the end of our world as we know it?!

Hopefully not. If we had discovered this asteroid after the year 2080, scientists say there wouldn’t have been a chance that our technologies would have been able to cope with an impending asteroid collision. However, since we’ve discovered it now, we still have ample time to come up with new technologies and deflection plans, and space organizations worldwide are in the process of wracking their brains for ideas. Phew.

Deep Impact or Armageddon ring any bells? Perhaps it’s time to give Bruce Willis a call to boldly go where no man has gone before…