Is it the Sweet Meteor of Death, or just more journalistic hype looking for clicks and eyeballs?

Impact!!

A colossal one mile wide asteroid, termed by some imaginative sorts 1999 FN53, and by others the Sweet Meteor of Death, will brush past the Earth this Thursday, with a closest approach of 3 million kilometres – far too close for comfort with a rock that big.

A collision of 1999 FN53 with Earth, especially an ocean strike, would be nothing short of catastrophic. The fire and blast alone would likely kill millions. It would cause massive earthquakes across the world. An ocean strike would raise mountain size tsunamis which would smash coastal cities thousands of miles from the strike. The climate impact would also be significant – the Younger Dryas, a brutal collapse in global temperatures which lasted 1200 years, may have been caused by an asteroid impact.

Whew!  Sounds scary, huh?

But wait, how close is that big angry rock coming to our sweet innocent little green marble?

According to NASA the closest approach this time is 26.5 lunar distances, or 10.2 million kilometers, not 3 million.  That isn't really all that much of a near miss, is it?  I mean, 26.5 times the distance from the Earth to the Moon?  I'd bet plenty of stuff flies past in that range and we don't even know it.

So, schedule your SMOD parties this Thursday, but don't really sweat it.  This time.