Comet Elenin Won’t Kill Us After All

It’s a bad day for doomsday prophets. NASA has just made an announcement stating that Comet Elenin will not cause any damage to the earth. The comet won’t come close to hitting the earth, and even if it did, it is far too small to do any damage.

After hearing a few rumors about the end of the world, NASA scientists decided to answer a few questions about Comet Elenin.

Here are some facts from NASA:

• Comet Elenin will pass about 22 million miles away from the earth on October 16th, 2011.
• 22 million miles is 9 times the distance to the moon.
• Comet Elenin is about 2.5 miles wide, so no, it will not block out the sun.

But even if the comet won’t hit earth, can’t it sill have cause some magical alignment that will alter the earth?

Don Yeomans, a scientist at NASA, said:

“Any approximate alignments of comet Elenin with other celestial bodies are meaningless, and the comet will not encounter any dark bodies that could perturb its orbit, nor will it influence us in any way here on Earth.

“Comet Elenin will not only be far away, it is also on the small side for comets. And comets are not the most densely-packed objects out there. They usually have the density of something akin to loosely packed icy dirt.

“So you’ve got a modest-sized icy dirtball that is getting no closer than 35 million kilometers [about 22 million miles). It will have an immeasurably minuscule influence on our planet. By comparison, my subcompact automobile exerts a greater influence on the ocean’s tides than comet Elenin ever will.”

If you still have doubts about the lack of a doomsday, you can read the rest of NASA’s report here.