Big asteroids hit Earth more frequently than thought, study suggests

[Admin]

Four big asteroids hit Earth in the past million years alone, according to a new study, suggesting that the space-rock danger is higher than previously thought. But not everyone agrees with the result.

Big asteroids hit Earth more frequently than thought, study suggests : Read more

 

[Ray Gunn]

Currently it's thought that an asteroid 1-km or larger hits the Earth on average every 650,000 years. The new study, if correct, suggests this size asteroid hits the Earth somewhat more often, on average every 250,000 years. That's a risk of 1:25,000 per century, or roughly a human lifetime. I'm not going to lose any sleep tonight ... at least not from this.

I suspect that extinction from an anthropogenic process or event is orders of magnitude more likely. In fact, even the next extinction-size asteroid to threaten Earth is more likely to be human-induced, either accidentally or intentional.