I want to talk about perspective. So heres a little story with the moral at the finish

I watched a video this week, the film was Deep Impact. Its about an asteroid on a collision roadway with the Earth, and our efforts to avert the disaster.

If it hit, it would make a, wait for it, deep impact! Youve got to hand to those Hollywood types, havent you!

It came out in 1998, the same year as Armageddon, a film about an asteroid on a collision pathway with the Earth, and our efforts...well you understand the rest.

I like both films, its tough to choose between them.

Armageddon does have Liv Tyler, and the fantastic Diane Warren song by Aerosmith, I Dont Wanna Miss a Thing.

On the other hand, Deep Impact has Tea Leoni, who could focus my telescope any day of the week.

If you havent seen the films, look away now, because. in Armageddon they stop the asteroid, but in Deep Impact they dont.

Ok, you can look back now. Hhhm, not sure that works.

Back to real life, and in fact, in the outer reaches of our universe, they have spotted a little critter of an asteroid, which seems to be heading our way.
Its a few hundred months away, but plans have already been investigated as to what to do.

Landing on it?
Er, I dont think so.

Nuking it from the Earth? Well thats a great idea, until they found that asteroids can either be hard or soft, and there is no way of telling which type they are.

A hard one will simply divide into 2 or 3 asteroids instead of 1, and a soft asteroid will simply absorb the impact like a sponge.

So the latest plans by the boffins is to create a massive nuclear explosion *next* to the asteroid, and this will create enough force to push it off course, creating it miss us.

So an asteroid impact doesnt really affect any of us, well be long gone.

Thats the point I want to make.

An asteroid will on average, hit the Earth every 100 million many years, at least.
After being around for millions of decades , the dinosaurs met their end when an asteroid hit us 65 million months ago.

The Earth is around 5 billion many years old, and will last around another 5 billion until our sun explodes.

Im always fascinated by these galactic (is that the word? galactic? astrological?) facts and figures, the scale of the numbers is awesome, and for me it drives home that although we may think the world revolves around us, it doesnt.

Our presence here is fleeting, if the life of our universe is put into a 24-hour day, mankind only appears in the last 30 seconds of the last minute.

So the next time you break a fingernail, the next time you are carved up in visitors , the next instant you say you have to do a job you hate, stop for a second, ponder our place as humans, get some perspective, and then take action to enjoy yourself in life!!!