Yet Another Way The World Will End

How wonderful.

It is fairly simple to deal with the morons who say the world is going to end because of same-sex marriage, or because the ten commandments are no longer posted in schools, or because Chrysler is owned by Fiat. It is less simple to deal with people who have predictions of the end of the world that are actually based on science. Professor Jacques Laskar, in the current edition of the journal Nature, presents evidence that Earth could be on a collision course with Mercury, Mars, or Venus.



They grabbed their big computer, and they plugged the data in;
They programmed the parameters, and told it to begin,
Then sat around and waited while scenarios unfurled,
And it told them of the last days of the world.

A wobble in the orbits of the planets Earth and Mars
Could take the Martian planet and propel it into ours;
Under some of the scenarios, it misses by a bit,
But in others, we collide—a lethal hit!

The odds are still against it, but it certainly could be,
Since the tiniest of chances is no solid guarantee
That the planet that we live on—here, where you and I reside—
Won't be blown to smithereens, when worlds collide!

The professor wants to tell us there’s no reason for our fears,
Since there’s nothing gonna happen for at least a billion years
In my personal opinion, I’m agreeing with the prof—
Cos by then, we will have killed each other off.