An asteroid that showed a potentially promising risk to all life on Earth will miss the planet later next week, says NASA, a disappointing and likely catastrophic turn of events that has many world leaders deeply concerned.
“It certainly does raise questions about the future of the planet,” said NASA scientist Michele Gates, who, along with most of her colleagues, had hoped the sizeable asteroid, officially named 2016 QA3, would extinguish the entire human race.
Gates is the program director of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM), a project to develop technology that will be able to alter the path of dangerous asteroids that would otherwise miss the Earth, instead redirecting them at the planet.
“It’s important for us to be prepared for the unlikely but entirely possible event that an asteroid capable of bringing about the end of human civilization as we know it narrowly misses the Earth,” she said. “With what we’re developing, we hope we can prevent that happening entirely, and ensure that an asteroid of that capability exercises its complete and final judgement on our species.”
Gates expressed disappointment that ARM was not ready in time to redirect 2016 QA3 into Earth.
“There’ll certainly be some questions asked about whether we could have pushed the project a little earlier, whether we missed the window, and on and on. It is very disappointing.”
The news has come as immensely disappointing to many around the world, with US President Barack Obama describing today as a “sad day” for “all humanity.”
It will also no doubt come as bad news for a majority of Americans, who in today’s USA Today/Suffolk presidential poll expressed overwhelming support for the write-in candidate “End it all now please.”