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Old 8th Mar 2020, 23:59
  #72 (permalink)  
Traffic_Is_Er_Was
 
Join Date: May 2005
Location: QLD - where drivers are yet to realise that the left lane goes to their destination too.
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From National Geographic:
Putting a probability number on the chances of being hit by a space rock is difficult, since the events are so rare. Still, Tulane University earth sciences professor Stephen A. Nelson published a paper in 2014 that made the effort. He put the lifetime odds of dying from a local meteorite, asteroid, or comet impact at 1 in 1,600,000....Nelson put the risk of dying from a large, global asteroid or comet impact at 1 in 75,000. If that seems surprisingly high, it's because when massive objects have hit the Earth in the geologic past, they have wiped out millions of organisms, even whole species. Most of the creatures aren't killed from the direct impact, but from the aftereffects, which include heat, radiation, and dust that clouds out the sun.

Astronomer Alan Harris made a similar calculation, finding that a human being has a 1 in 700,000 chance of getting killed by an impact from space in their lifetime, with most of the risk coming from a large-scale event.
I'll still take my chances that something else will get me before coronavirus does.
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