How many scary asteroids really go past Earth every year?

https://phys.org/news/2023-08-city-killers-half-giraffes-scary-asteroids.html

What are the risks, by the numbers? How many asteroids hit Earth and how many can we expect to zip past us?

59 points · 4 comments · view on lemmy.world

4 Comments

Sigmatics@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 3y (3 replies)

So just a 1 in 20 chance for an undetected asteroid with 1km diameter that could cause global civilization collapse.

This is fine. /s

On a serious note, it will probably take an actual asteroid hitting a city for governments to invest more into asteroid detection and defense

TheObserver@lemmy.world · 1 pts · 3y (2 replies)

Unfortunately true. The only way to get humans to collectively want to deal with space is a threat from space. Once life's are threatened all of a sudden it's a fast track to build defenses and bases to protect humanity. Honestly if it means allowing some humans to die to allow humanity to live longer than so be it 🤷. After all the end goal is to not go extinct.

artisanrox@kbin.social · 1 pts · 3y

Once life’s are threatened all of a sudden it’s a fast track to build defenses and bases to protect humanity.

me: not so sure about this anymore 😒

Sigmatics@lemmy.ca · 1 pts · 3y

Yeah. Unfortunately then it will be too late.

It's not like we don't know from evidence that there have been multiple mass extinctions due to asteroids