space

At Least We Don’t Have to Worry About This One Thing

Photo: Andrzej Wojcicki/Getty Images/Science Photo Library

If worrying is your thing, or even if it isn’t but you live in this incredibly unjust and chaotic world, then there’s plenty of material to imbibe at the moment. There’s an outbreak throughout much of the world of a virus that isn’t yet well enough understood, and a see-sawing presidential election whose stakes could not be higher, and the immediate need to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. There’s the fact of widespread income inequality, and, on a personal level, relationships that come and go. Somehow you need to get clothes on most days and feed yourself and possibly others.

It would be really bad if you also had to worry about a Melancholia-like space collision event. Fortunately, for now, you do not. CNN reported on Tuesday that NASA has discovered an asteroid estimated to be between 1.1. and 2.5 miles wide that will fly by Earth on April 29. The asteroid is, according to NASA, “large enough to cause global effects,” but thankfully that won’t happen.

This asteroid is not on NASA’s list of potential future Earth impact events. If it were, it would be monitored by NASA’s Sentry System, “a highly automated collision monitoring system that continually scans the most current asteroid catalog for possibilities of future impact with Earth over the next 100 years.” But again, it’s not. This is the largest asteroid expected to pass by Earth within the next two months. The bread currently in my freezer will exist longer than this asteroid’s marginal importance. So not a big deal.

The good news is that if the Earth is still going to be here in two months then it’s definitely still worth fighting for, as are all the people on it. Except maybe the few whom you personally have an issue with — I’ll leave it to you to sort that out yourself.

At Least We Don’t Have to Worry About This One Thing