“Huge rocks falling from the sky could take out a city, a nation or even lay waste to the whole planet and that can feel like the universe is out to get us.
“Daily headlines that scream about asteroids coming too close to Earth encourage this paranoia.
“The truth is, our planet is in the middle of a cosmic shooting gallery.
“Asteroids fly by and the Earth is hit every day with hundreds of tonnes of dust grains and small rocks.”
When a six-mile-wide (10km) space rock struck the planet 66 million years, the impact wiped out two-thirds of life on Earth.
Scientists estimate the killer asteroid triggered a nuclear winter of sorts that ended the reign of the dinosaurs.
source: express.co.uk