Spend a little more time observing meteors or combating climate change, spend a little less time worrying about global catastrophes. David Biello reports
It's hard to miss an asteroid the size of a truck exploding with all the force of a nuclear bomb. Such a space rock boiled across the sky near Chelyabinsk in southern Russia on February 15.
Space objects are a constant threat to Earth. In the worst case, the dust cloud from a major impact could shut down photosynthesis. No matter how much carbon dioxide humanity spews into the atmosphere, we may be powerless to prevent a kind of nuclear winter from the impact of an even bigger object, like 2012 DA14 which just passed within 17,200 miles of Earth.
See full Article: http://www.scientificamerican.com/podcast/episode.cfm?id=insurance-for-global-catastrophes-w-13-02-20
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