Hermes Found 66 Years Later - Long-Lost Object Is A Bright Binary

I can search the web and find many people who have
died in plane crashes, but, there's not one instance
in recorded history of anyone dying in an asteroid
impact...... makes that rather suspect....

This point can be exceedingly difficult to get across.
Our instincts tell us that there cannot be big danger
if there is no small danger. But in this case our
instincts are WRONG.

The earth's atmosphere shields us from all the little
stuff. There are even cases on record of people
being hit by a fist-sized meteorite, and surviving -
because it was very much slowed down by the
atmosphere.

But the big danger is from the very rare, very large
objects - say 100 meters or more - which punch
through the atmosphere without being slowed down.
They could kill millions of people.

Multiply the probability of such an event (a very
small number) by the number killed (a very large
number.) You get a probablity of an *individual*
being killed by meteor strike something on the
or order of one in ten thousand.

But there is another difference: If you die, your
genes live on in your children and collateral relatives,
and your culture lives on. But if you lose the whole
ball of wax ....

Ben