Asteroid Set to End the World Sometime Today?

You know what’s wicked awesome about astronomy?  Michael Bay.  Remember in Armageddon how the earth, the entire planet of like 1 million people or however many are here, could only be saved by the collective awesomeness of Die Hard, Gigli and John Coffy?  It was so absurd it had to be true, you can’t make that stuff up.  Man that was kick ass.  I don’t wanna close my eyes!  I don’t wanna fall asleep because THIS IS AWESOME!

Today’s the day to make sure all our deep sea drillers and actors with receding hairlines are fully geared up and ready to go as apparently an asteroid is going to brush so close to the earth that if you’re laying on your back at the time, it’s apt to jostle your scrotum.

Apparently NASA discovered this asteroid on Monday and it’s set to pass the earth at around one-third of the distance between the Earth and the moon.  Today.  They found it two days ago.

Thanks to pop culture we’ve long held the belief that, if and when a giant rock is heading towards the Earth, we’ll have a good year from the time Elijah Wood warns us to the time we have to go live in a salt mine and prepare to restart the human race.  Science, ever the action junkie, says Elijah Wood can go wank Gandalf behind a Chick-Fil-A because we’ve got no time for that crap.  Asteroids are here today, man!  Today!

Officially we’re not scheduled to die, though honestly if you discovered the world was ending today, on Monday, would you bother letting anyone know?  More likely you’d just liquidate your assets and go on an epic two day hooker bender.  But whatever.  Maybe NASA has a strict “No Doomsday Hooker Bender” policy.

In fairness, word is this asteroid is a bit of a pipsqueak and probably would register as little more than a cosmic fart if it tried to start any shit with the Earth.  Our planet doesn’t take crap from upstart interstellar bodies that are floating around all willy nilly.  But if you’re hankering for a more realistic doomsday scenario, be on the look out in 2029 for something they’ve called Apophis, which will be three times closer than today’s near miss.

Hopefully, inspired by today;s incident and in anticipation of 2029, Michael Bay will retool Armageddon and make, like, Armageddonosity!  And it’ll star Arnold Schwarzenegger as a simple dairy farmer, Lewis Black as his amateur astronomer cousin, Mischa Barton as a hooker and Seth Rogen as the alcoholic nuclear physicist who just wants to be loved.  Together they’ll save the world, or die trying laughing!