The Spiegel reports about new calculations done that are giving the chances of a fatal meteor crash on earth with 1 in 5000 for the next 100 years. The number of asteroids over 1 km in diameter with a likelyhood of crossing the earth´s orbit is estimated with 1000.

Interessting. I am currently reading Terry Pratchett´s "The Science of Discworld" where he paints an entirely different picture: In the next couple of hundred million years, the solar system will undergo dramatic changes. Computer simulations predict that the solar system will loose either Mercury or Venus. Mercury is getting so close to Venus that it will be slung out of the solar system much like a satelite from NASA. An interesting idea.

Of course the difference between those two pieces of news is that in the first, the point of view suggests that there is a "risk" of change in the immediate future, while the second assumes a "certainty" of change over the course of millenia. - Discuss