Everything Is Going to Kill Everybody

turning meteors away from Earth could ultimately be just as effective at rerouting otherwise harmless asteroids toward us. Sagan thought that since political leaders are all basically batshit insane, Earth will be at greater risk from a man-made impact than from anything naturally occurring. So he believed that by introducing ideas meant to avert disaster, we would actually give the bad guys some ideas to invite that same disaster. As if to prove his point, the Soviet Union read his theories and immediately set about work on Project: Ivan’s Hammer, a military operation whose sole purpose was the complete weaponization of space by steering incoming asteroids toward specific global targets. Sagan was immediately struck dead by the irony. May he rest in peace, though he’s far more likely spinning in his grave.

So even if the randomness of space doesn’t kill us, there are people on Earth more than willing to take up the slack? I guess it’s really only a matter of time before it happens. It could be any minute… it could happen… right… now! Ah, just kidding.

You’ve got until 2029.

Oh, I’m sorry, what? You didn’t know? That’s when the next one might hit. It’s named Apophis, and it’s very excited to meet you. It would shake your hand, but it prefers to say hello more the old-fashioned way: with explosions. But after that, shall we say, warm welcome, the conversation might turn chilly when the impact winter sets in! That is, assuming you don’t die from awesome pun overload first… ahem. So anyway, Apophis is expected to pass dangerously close to the Earth in early 2029—closer even than our own geosynchronous satellites! And though leading scientists say it’s unlikely to hit based on their projections, with a probability of only about 1 in 45,000, they also mention that their projections at this point are “not an exact science,” which, when you think about it, is a pretty shitty thing to hear from an astrophysicist. Add the fact that these trajectories are easily influenced by any and all outside force— from planetary pull to space junk (you know, like those geosynchronous satellites it will be passing straight through)—and it’s still somewhat unlikely that Apophis will hit in 2029. But any alteration of its course resulting from those satellite impacts could result in it hitting the Earth the next time it comes around… in 2036.

Events with a Probability of About 1 in 45,000

• Stubbing both toes in the same day on the same thing.

• Finding a $20 bill on the street.

• Winning fifth prize on Scratch-it.

• All life on Earth being blown to holy shit by an asteroid twenty years from now.

Apophis isn’t going to be an asteroid one-night stand, scaring you just the one time and disappearing forever. No, this is more like an asteroid relationship, and my friends, I’m sorry to say that it is a dysfunctional one. If you’re the kind of person who likes to look on the upside, though, you could think of it this way: It’s like a bonus! You looked in the box expecting only one, but now you’ve got two free, heaping scoops of explosive death in every box of your terror flakes. There’s also a supersecret prize inside. (Hint: It’s more explosions.)

13. VERNESHOT

THE EARTH IS A gun, and your country is a bullet. No, those aren’t poorly translated Japanese metal band lyrics, nor are they the pseudo-poetic mewling of jilted emo children; those words could be, terrifyingly enough, a completely true statement. It’s all because of something called a Verneshot, and though the theory is still under debate, it is the only one so far that explains why mass extinctions, severe geological damage, and volcanic eruptions often occur simultaneously all throughout history. Not content to simply state that “some shit went down,” scientists have instead begun pointing to the Verneshot. And then probably screaming. And then dying.

That’s just what the Verneshot does.

The big extinction that we all know about—a meteor killed the dinosaurs—is referred to as the Cretaceous- Tertiary, or K-T, extinction. New theories suggest that that disaster could have been caused by a Verneshot rather than a meteor impact. A team of scientists led by Jason Phipps Morgan at the GEOMAR Earth Science Institute at Kiel University first proposed the theory, which goes like this: Huge volumes of volcanic gas slowly build up beneath layers of impenetrable rock, called cratons. When those rocks start splitting apart ever so slightly, the built-up gases explode through the weak points—blowing the craton into a suborbital trajectory. The expelled chunk of rock is launched into the air, orbits the Earth briefly, and then crashes back to the planet with nearly the force of a meteor impact. Meanwhile, the tube that formerly held all the gas has emptied, pouring its noxious contents into the atmosphere. It then collapses in upon itself, causing an earthquake.

Fart Jokes That I Could Have Made

• “So much gas is released, it’s like the Earth ate a seven-layer burrito.”

• “More gas is released into the atmosphere than your grandpa’s La-Z-Boy.”

• “So much gas is released, it’s like somebody punctured Michael Moore.”

It sounds like just a more extreme version of a volcanic eruption—big rock, gases, seismic activity—but the twist is in the scale of the thing: See, cratons are usually gargantuan. About the size of a country, to be exact, and that’s a bad size for something that’s being shot at your face. But the rock isn’t your only worry: The tube that launched it—also hundreds of miles wide—causes devastating earthquakes upon its collapse. Estimates show that these earthquakes are off the current charts, estimated at an 11 on the Richter scale; the scientists in charge of measuring this would have to create a new notch on the dial just to do so, making them the Spinal Tap of the earth sciences. So much gas is released that it poisons the entire atmosphere for thousands of years, blotting out the sun and corrupting the air itself.

But hey, let’s not get distracted here; there’s still a small continent in the sky that wants you dead. Let’s get back to that, shall we? Upon impact, the blast would be akin to 7 million atomic bombs going off in the same place, and at the same exact time. That’s too big a number for too bad a thing for most of us to fully comprehend. So if it helps, picture this: The city of London has a population of roughly 7 million. So imagine that the entire city of London is populated by atomic bombs. Atomic bombs in place of secretaries, gas station attendants, and schoolchildren—everybody. Exactly the same as London in every respect, but instead of each individual person living there, there is a device with exactly enough power to destroy Hiroshima. And then one of them trips.

How to Survive a Verneshot in One Easy Step

1. Don’t live on a continent.

Charmingly enough, the Verneshot was named for Jules Verne, whose book From the Earth to the Moon posited that space travel could be accomplished by loading astronauts into a giant cannon and just firing them at the lunar surface, presumably operating under the theory that the moon is made out of pillows. And it is, after all, a pretty fitting name. Because in light of all we’ve learned, it is technically possible for a huge cannon to shoot you into space; it’s just that you’ll be screaming particles of horror and guts when you get there. That probably would have made a much shorter book, though.

An Excerpt from the Realistic Version of From the Earth to the Moon

Charles straightened his protective impact derby, mounted the atmos-cannon, and bid a formal farewell laced with restrained emotion to his most loyal and loving children. There was a sound like the bellow of Gabriel’s