In the world of astronomy a billion kilometers is like a missile hitting the neighborhood next to yours. So while there’s a good amount of hyperbole there, it’s still relatively close. You’re still shaken up by it hitting your town. And eventually we will win the lottery and have an astronomical event outside our control devestate the earth. It’s happened before.
Well, a billion kilometers is almost 7 times the mean distance between the earth and the sun. Asteroids pass in that distance all the time. We’re currently closer to Ceres (the dwarf planet) than that and its on the other side of the sun from us.
In the world of astronomy a billion kilometers is like a missile hitting the neighborhood next to yours. So while there’s a good amount of hyperbole there, it’s still relatively close. You’re still shaken up by it hitting your town. And eventually we will win the lottery and have an astronomical event outside our control devestate the earth. It’s happened before.
Well, a billion kilometers is almost 7 times the mean distance between the earth and the sun. Asteroids pass in that distance all the time. We’re currently closer to Ceres (the dwarf planet) than that and its on the other side of the sun from us.
Some might say we’re overdue…