DART FINDS THE BULLSEYE

According to the prognosticators, we’re due for total destruction in 2178. This isn’t a prediction gleaned from the opaque ramblings of Nostradamus. It comes straight from Nasa. In fact, it comes from the department where the stargazers are particularly interested in asteroids — those bits and bobs of the Big Bang that didn’t resolve into planets and other stellar objects with relatively fixed spots in the universe — the department where they do their work and watch out for celestial signs and portents of the end days.

The last asteroid to hit Earth with any force was during the recent lockdown — it took out a driveway somewhere in the English countryside. The natural history types came along and literally dug up the impacted driveway and saved it for posterity.

Apparently, cars hit by asteroids multiply exponentially in value. This isn’t because the asteroids chemically alter the vehicles’ composition and it becomes priceless, but because in an alchemical sense, these cars transmogrify into fool’s gold and people interested in this sort of thing are prepared to spend lavishly.

The good news is that in all the years of cosmic dust falling into our atmosphere, no human has ever suffered a direct hit. The really good news is that unlike the rather unfortunate developments 66-billion years ago, we won’t be expiring like the dinosaurs in the year 2178.

Last month Nasa, through its Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or (handily) DART, showed that a spaceship the size of a golf cart could impact positively with an asteroid, called Dimorphos, the size of a cricket field by crashing headfirst into it.

This is a good thing because DART hit the target and in doing so gave us peace of mind. In other words, if we can see it we can stop it. We could give that amorphous mass of dust and rock a little shove and change its trajectory forever. This is brilliant. We are totally safe, provided Putin and his psycho general in charge of the nuclear warheads don’t get to us first.

I’m not sure what Nasa or Nostradamus have to say about that.