The Sky is Falling!

The alert from TMZ came across my phone. “NASA warning: Asteroid could hit the U.S. one day before election.”

What??!! Is this Harvey Levin or Michael Babcock just messing with me? Turns out, it’s for real.

I went to CNN.

The asteroid is 6.5 feet in size, and it’s projected to come close to the Earth on November 2, according to the Center for Near Earth Objects at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.

(Don’t you love that we have an agency that does that?)

Anyway, these folks also say the asteroid is small enough that it will burn up in the atmosphere, giving it a 0.41 chance of it hitting anyone or anything on Earth.

Whew. Okay, I’m feeling better… but this is 2020.

Let’s get back to this NASA-JPL Center for Near Earth Objects Studies. CENOS, as it’s called. Yes, it’s a thing. Kind of a big thing, I’m learning.

It’s the outfit that studies NEO’s—Near Earth Objects—that are coming our way. Things like asteroids, comets and meteors. The folks who work for CENOS predict when, where, and how bad the impacts might be.

And you think your day was rough? Can you imagine having to do that for a living? The staff meetings!

When I was a kid, we had the story of Henny Penny…aka Chicken Little. “The sky is falling! The sky is falling!”

Sounds like somebody took it seriously and made it into an entire department at NASA.

I guess this means we won’t need hard hats in November. Though I might pick one up anyway. I already got caught this year without enough toilet paper and Dr Pepper.

I promise you that the media will be looking into the sky on November 2. Why? It’s what we do. And I’ll bet you’ll be wanting a big distraction the day before the election anyway.

The sky is falling? Maybe not… That will happen the next day.