STOP worrying about Earth-bound asteroids – save your sleepless nights for massive volcanic eruptions. They pose twice as much of a threat to civilisation as impacts from outer space.
Cosmic bodies with a diameter of more than 1 kilometre hit the Earth once every 100,000 years or so. On today’s crowded planet, the dust storms and wildfires created by such impacts would wipe out over a billion people. But super-eruptions capable of wreaking this kind of havoc happen around once every 50,000 years, says earth scientist Michael Rampino of New York University.
And while governments are waking up to…
