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Killer Asteroids

2019-10-20 16:43:05.301974+00 by Dan Lyke 2 comments

This Awful Tabloid Predicts a Killer Asteroid Almost Every Day — Is this the worst science journalism on the internet?

On October 4, 2019, writers at the British tabloid The Daily Express published five separate articles about what they claimed were killer asteroids careening toward the Earth.

At the Express, this seems fairly typical. It’s rare for a day to go by without the newspaper warning, or heavily implying, that a deadly space rock is about to annihilate civilization. Between September 7 and October 8, for instance, we counted 87 Express articles about killer asteroids — which works out to an average of nearly three doomsday space posts per day.

Poe's Law suggests that it's not, in fact the worst science journalism on the Internet, buuuut...

[ related topics: Religion Space & Astronomy Astronomy Writing Current Events Journalism and Media Net Culture Conspiracy ]

comments in ascending chronological order (reverse):

#Comment Re: Killer Asteroids made: 2019-10-21 02:33:40.929957+00 by: TheSHAD0W

We *have* had some pretty large rocks go past lately, some of which weren't spotted until the last minute, some of which we should've expected them but still nearly missed them. It might be fearmongering, but they make a point; we need more eyes on the sky.

#Comment Re: Killer Asteroids made: 2019-10-23 15:58:40.912058+00 by: Dan Lyke

Yeah, you could imagine what would happen if a Tunguska event happened over a major city... On the other hand, The Express driving NASA policy also doesn't seem like a good idea...

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