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Six asteroids will pass by Earth on January 20, which just so happens to be Inauguration Day in the US (via ZME Science). Fortunately, or unfortunately–depending on if you have a nihilistic wish for 2021 to just be over already–the asteroids will not collide with our planet.
According to ZME science, the closest one will pass Earth by roughly the same distance that the moon is located at. You can view all of the asteroids’ data over at NASAs Center For Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS).
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If you’re curious about past asteroids that made it close enough to the Earth for NASA to take note, you can also view that info in the above link. CNEOS is an organization that “computes high precision orbits for Near-Earth Objects (NEOs), predicts their future motions, and assesses their impact hazard.”
While zombie outbreaks and cyberpunk fantasies about corporate greed destroying humanity are currently the popular cultural visions of apocalypse, asteroids hitting the earth is another option. The Green Slime, Deep Impact, and Armageddon are all movies with asteroids posing an real existential threat to humanity. (The Green Slime is one of those good, bad movies–you shouldn’t watch it for the plot, but its sheer marvelous lack of plot.)
In actual history, an asteroid impact most likely was one of the causes behind a large extinction event on Earth. The Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event occurred over 66 million years ago wiped out a large swath of plant and animal species, effectively ended the dinosaur era, and launched us into the current Cenozoic era, also known as the age of mammals.
If you’re curious what a CNEOS response to a threatening asteroid would look like, check out its Hypothetical Impact Scenarios page. Note: the documents are thought exercises around a hypothetical event and aren’t tied to real-world events.
