Sorry to remind you about that movie, but if you recall it was about an asteroid that was going to hit the Earth, and they sent Bruce Willis to blow it up.

Wow, it was a really bad movie, wasn’t it?

Anyway, there are of course actually “things” in space that could threaten the Earth, and scientists try to keep an eye on them as best they can. They have developed a scale to describe the potential threat these things pose to the Earth called the Torino scale. Anyway, apparently when they started releasing news of asteroids that were close enough to rate on this scale the general public was a little unnerved, in a pants-sh!$ting terror sort of way about the wording of the Torino scale, which I guess was more or less dry and factual, and so of course very scientific. Here’s an example of the old scale, 10, or the highest level of impact certainty:

A collision capable of causing a global climatic catastrophe. Such events occur once per 100,000 years, or less often.

Well, that’s pretty clear. And somewhat terrifying. So, they revised the scale to be less terrifying, in order to not disturb the livestock, er people. The reasoning for this is pretty sound, if something big is coming to smite us, what the heck are you really going to do about it? Anyway, here’s the new warning for the level 10 (or as it’s now known, Kiss Your Ass Goodbye, just up one from number 9 or This Is Really Really Going to Hurt):

A collision is certain, capable of causing global climatic catastrophe that may threaten the future of civilization as we know it, whether impacting land or ocean. Such events occur on average once per 100,000 years, or less often.

Oh, that’s much better. It’s quite reassuring, actually. I was wondering what would happen to civilization after I was a flaming ball of gas and particles.

Bravo.

This sentiment was stolen from The Register.

*Update. As I posted this I remembered that we got buzzed not that long ago, and I was ignorant of the Torino scale at the time. See, I have grown up a bit, if only a little.