Should I worry about an asteroid hitting Earth?
No. Big asteroid strikes are extremely rare, and astronomers are watching the sky to find any that could come close. Scientists have even practised pushing one off course.
It is natural to feel a little worried after hearing about the dinosaurs or seeing a disaster film, but the real risk is very small.
Asteroids big enough to cause serious damage hit Earth only very rarely, perhaps once every few thousand years for one large enough to destroy a city, and once in tens of millions of years for a giant one. Most space rocks that reach us are tiny and burn up harmlessly as shooting stars.
Astronomers around the world are working hard to find every asteroid that could come close. They use powerful telescopes to scan the sky every night. They have already found almost all the biggest asteroids near Earth, more than a kilometre across, and none of them is on course to hit us in the next hundred years or more.
Scientists have also practised moving an asteroid. In 2022, NASA crashed a spacecraft called DART into a small asteroid moon called Dimorphos, which posed no danger to anyone. The crash changed its path more than expected. That means if we ever find a dangerous asteroid early enough, we might be able to nudge it away.
So you can enjoy shooting stars without fear. People are keeping watch.