Go get your coziest blanket, your favorite chair, a mug of something warm and delicious

and delicious. And let's discuss existential threats to the human species. Because, folks,

it's time for us to have a lovely chat

about the end of the world. Sooner or later, it's going to happen. Not the end of the world. I mean,

giant rocks. A giant rock will come from nowhere. It will fall from the sky and it will smack our

planet. It's impossible to say when. It's impossible to say how bad it's going to be, but it will happen. It's a fact of life in the solar system. Our planet is not alone here in the solar system. It's not even alone in its orbit. There are dozens, hundreds, thousands of asteroids and comets that wander the interplanetary depths.

Most are harmless, minding their own business, following their own lonely trajectories,

but some are threats.

Some are deadly.

Some stray a little bit too close.

These are what are known as the Near Earth Asteroids or N-E-A's, although sometimes you

might encounter an alternative term N-E-O for a near-E-E-O-E-O-F object, which encompasses

asteroids, potential comets, and like meteoroids, just like stuff that's too small to even be counted as an asteroid.

So NEA, NEO, it's rocks in space that get too close.

The International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center, which maintains a list of, and no points awarded for guessing this correctly,

minor planets within the solar system has a running tally.

At the time of recording of this episode, the Center has recorded 34,152 asteroids

with orbits that come within 0.05 astronomical units of the Earth.

As a reminder, an AU astronomical unit is the average distance between the Earth and the

sun, and so we're talking about less than 1.20th of that distance.

If a rock comes within that distance, it is classified as a potential threat, as a near-Earth object or near-Earth

asteroid. You take your pick. I don't care. You can call it whatever you want. Of all the

...