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If Worlds Collide

If Worlds Collide
If Worlds Collide Deer find repose in a bucolic alpine meadow nestled in Olympic National Park. But such scenes of seeming security and timelessness are illusionary—as the dinosaurs discovered 65 million years ago when a comet or asteroid impact wiped them out. Earth resides in a swarm of smaller bodies, many with the potential to wreak havoc on civilization. We have discovered about 10 percent of the near-Earth objects, but one of the many unknown objects may at any time appear and pass through our neighborhood—as did Comet Hyakutake just last year. Such as-yet-undiscovered comets may pose the greatest danger to life as we know it. Deer photo: J. Lotter, Tom Stack & Associates; Comet Hyakutake: Johnny Horne