From the Skies

March 27, 2026 Donald Davis, An artist's depiction of an extra-planetary body colliding with the Earth.

By Liam Conway-Pearson

May 1, 2026

Apparently, asteroids entering Earth’s atmosphere and exploding with great force are far more common than most people may think. A foundation called B612, composed of many former NASA astronauts, is campaigning to raise awareness and take steps to protect the planet. Citing data gathered by a task force designed to study secret nuclear detonations, the foundation asserts that over the past 14 years there have been 26 asteroids that have entered the Earth’s atmosphere and exploded with forces much greater than that of an atomic bomb.

The truly telling and quite scary fact is that only one of these 26 was discovered before it struck, and only by several hours. Fortunately, all of these asteroids either blew up very high in the atmosphere or hit ground in very remote areas, much diminished from flying through the atmosphere. B612 plans to place a telescope in an orbit of the Sun similar to that of Venus to provide warnings ahead of time so steps can be taken to avoid catastrophe. While the likelihood of an asteroid large enough to cause mass extinction like the one thought to have ended the reign of the dinosaurs striking the Earth is slim, smaller rocks could still be ruinous. The good news is that if they are spotted in advance there are many ways to deal with them, such as slightly diverting their course by hitting them with something or utilizing gravitational attraction between the asteroid and a space ship. Of course, these methods have never been tried and would be risky propositions, but they do seem feasible. If steps are not taken to monitor asteroid collisions soon, the silent danger of space could bring very real consequences to Earth.