Earth may die in 2036

[RoboCop]

[Helios]

Ahh yes, my old friend Apophis.

This one has been in the news a lot over the last couple years. The jury is still out on if it will hit us or not. For a time it was ranked at level 4 on the Torino impact scale, with odds as low as 1 in 37 of an impact. Recent observations have refined the chances to a much safer 1 in 250,000, but we're keeping an eye on it until it passes the keyhole.

Hate to burst your bubble, but if Apophis hits us, it's not the end of the world . Having said that, this is a big asteroid. It's approx. diameter is 885 feet (just 5 feet longer than the North-South diameter of the Rose Bowl Stadium). If it were to hit, it would have an impact force of about 510 megatons of TNT, over twice as powerful as the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, but only half of the KT impact that wiped out the Dinosaurs (100,000 megatons). The actual effects would be based on where and how it impacted, but thousands of kilometers would be devastated, and up to 10 million people could die from the initial effects.

For more info on Apophis, check out the Wikipedia article here. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/99942_Apophis