Don’t Look Up: On Sunday Afternoon, an Asteroid Just Missed the Earth

At about 2:15 p.m. EDT Sunday, an asteroid went whizzing by the Earth and "just" missed hitting us by 25,000 miles.

I know that sounds pretty far. But in space terms, it isn't.

This keeps happening more and more. Or more likely, it ALWAYS has happened, we now just know about it more thanks to technology. "An asteroid will just miss Earth tomorrow. We won't always be so lucky" explains.

"To be clear, there is zero chance it can hit us. This is certain.

But in the long-term, worrying a little about asteroids isn't an unreasonable idea.

Now, the odds of a massively destructive asteroid impact at any given time are tiny, but the potential costs would be enormous. Yet we still haven't invested in all the infrastructure needed to spot small asteroids with much warning (we spotted this one less than a week ago). And we've done nothing to develop the ability to divert a larger one if it threatened us.

We're totally fine.

In fact, the asteroid is small and far enough away that you won't be able to see it without a telescope. But it'd be great if we can use this sort of near-miss to rouse us from our species-wide slumber, and make asteroid detection more of a priority."

I'm no space fraidy cat, but some day we won't be so lucky. I just hope it happens in 2175 -- when I'm 206 years old.