This issue's cover feature (p14) focuses on an event that most of us will probably never see but that has the potential to drastically shorten not only individual lives but the lifetimes of entire civilisations, and even species: a massive asteroid strike into the planet's surface. Unlikely though this is, it has happened before - the dinosaurs and many contemporary species were wiped out by an asteroid strike around 70 million years ago -while small and not-so-small objects collide with Earth regularly. What has happened before can happen again; indeed, some think it is inevitable.
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