The size of our world in comparison to other planets make our earth and ourselves look puny. Not included in the picture though is the many asteroids and comets that float around the universe of such size that can strike mother earth to smatterings.
The Near Earth Asteroid is of the 300 meter (1,000 feet) diameter Apollo asteroid 4581 Asclepius that missed the earth by 700,000 km (400,000 miles) on March 23, 1989. One might think that 400,000 miles is a big gap and earthlings had nothing to worry about. However, when you come to think of it, the asteroid passed through the same position that the earth was only six hours before. Given the speed at which earth and the asteroid traveled, the gap was only six hours. If the asteroid had impacted earth it would have created the largest explosion in recorded history.
There are 26 known asteroids larger than 200 km in diameter but there are also over 500 million undiscovered asteroids that can be greater than the size of earth (7,926 miles in diameter).
The asteroids floating around the universe could completely destroy mother earth if there is a collision. It will rock the oceans splitting the crust of earth causing massive explosions, fires and tidal waves all at once. The heat emanated from such a clash of these titans can dissolve all metal and flesh to indistinguishable ash. The dust cloud can block the sun for hundreds to a million years or so and make earth so cold that it could end up as one big ice cube. Of course, the probability of these events happening are very small (every few hundred thousand years), but when and if it happens the disaster is catastrophic. Other possible future global catastrophes are ejection of earth from its orbit sending it spinning uncontrollably in outer-space - towards the sun and the earth will just burn up and further away from the sun and all life on earth will be frozen to death.
Friends, this is not science fiction, it is real, while the damage is catastrophic, the probability is small. So, sit back and enjoy life. Who cares, life is not permanent anyway. Nature's fury of earthquakes, tidal waves and tsunamis, cyclones, hurricanes, drought, etc, are sufficient enough to cause parcels of destruction to infrastructure and human life, so why must we ask for more.
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