Back in the good old days, at the height of the Cold War when we all lived in expectation of an imminent nuclear holocaust, I used to say how glad I was that I lived in Washington, D.C. — Ground Zero in the event of a Soviet attack. Because I wanted to be under the first bomb to hit . . . I did not want to live to see what followed.

Well, as we all know, cooler minds prevailed, Armageddon didn’t happen then, and people stopped investing in backyard fallout shelters.

Now we just keep one eye open for drones. But that’s a whole different issue.

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Yesterday I read about something over which we humans have no control whatsoever: a newly identified asteroid known as “2024 YR4” (reminds me of the lovable little “Star Wars” ‘droid, R2-D2). The report stated that the chances of this one hitting Earth — precisely on December 22, 2032, if current prognostications are correct — have just been recalculated, and increased from 1.2% to 2.2% likelihood.

Unfortunately, scientists don’t seem to be able to give a precise estimate of where the hurtling piece of space junk is likely to hit, so we’ll just have to hope and pray that it lands in some uninhabited wasteland, and doesn’t choose to make its home in New York, or Paris, or Tokyo. The middle of the Gobi Desert would be nice.

The last asteroid to affect our planet showed up in 2013, exploding in the air over Chelyabinsk, Russia, “releasing 20 to 30 times more energy than that of the first atomic bomb, [and] generating brightness greater than the sun.” It is reported to have injured more than 1,000 people and damaged more than 7,000 buildings. [Ashley Strickland. CNN, February 7, 2025.] It could have been a lot worse.

And YR4 is two to four times the size of that one. So, while the chances of its hitting Earth at all are still very slim, I’m thinking I’d like to send it my GPS coordinates now, to ensure that I’ll be right under it — once again at Ground Zero — if and when it does arrive.

Just in case.

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Oh, by the way . . . lest my neighbors worry unnecessarily about being taken out with me, be assured that — on the off chance I’m still around and YR4 hasn’t burned itself out by 2032 — I’ll be moving to the Gobi Desert right after Thanksgiving that year, and taking my GPS with me. So you may all sleep soundly, knowing that the only victims of that particular flaming ball of gas will be yours truly and a few dozen camels.

And the only thing flying over your neighborhood in December of 2032 will be Santa’s sleigh.

Merry Christmas in advance.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
2/8/25