Martians in for some contact sport
Mark January 31 in your diary. If anyone invites you to a barbecue on Mars on that day, say no. You might wind up roasted yourself, because as you read this, a rogue asteroid is hurtling towards the Red Planet, and you wouldn't want to be underneath it when it gets there.
Dubbed 2007WD5 by astronomers, the asteroid doesn't sound enormous at 50 metres wide, but hitting the ground at 45,000 kilometres an hour a 50-metre chunk of rock can wreak a good deal of havoc.
It is a timely reminder that these things can, and do, plough into the Earth as well, and it's spooky to think that the last time one did was almost 100 years ago, on June 30, 1908, when vast areas of Siberian forest were totalled in "the Tunguska Event".
That titanic explosion was a mystery for decades, but it is now thought that it was caused by an asteroid very similar to 2007WD5. Had it landed a few hours later, say, on London or Berlin, the history of the 20th century would have been very different.
Baralha e dá de novo! E ninguém fala do TU24 que no dia 28-29 passa mais perto da TERRA. O de Marte vai para lá. E o "nosso"?