Merely days after a 2020-meter asteroid flew past Earth when New Year’s parties were still in full swing, a larger space object is believed to be en route to Earth, perhaps as a preparation for what the medieval French foreteller Nostradamus predicted for sometime later in 2021.
First, on 4 January, 32-meter asteroid 2021 AB and 11-meter 2012 BT1 will shoot past the Earth at a distance of 842,000 km and 5.2 million kilometers respectively, closely followed by another one, the cherry on top - the 62-meter (or half the height of Ancient Egypt’s Great Pyramid) asteroid 2021 AC, which is expected to zoom past our planet at a distance of around 3.5 million kilometers, according to NASA.
Next on the timetable, there will come a much bigger 2016 CO247, measuring an estimated 270 meters (which approximates the size of the Eiffel Tower) and it will zoom past our planet at 7.4 million kilometers.
It will be followed by the 32-meter 2018 KP1, which will later pass Earth at a distance of 3.1 million kilometers.
While none of these space rocks pose any direct threat to Earth, some of them are still viewed as potentially hazardous objects, or PHOs, and thus attract the attention of planetary defense gurus.
Even more so, since an astrologer from the 1500s, Nostradamus, already predicted quite a few worrisome events, the description of which directly correspond to what stargazers have been bracing for - something “in the sky”, with “fire and a long trail of sparks”.
“After great trouble for humanity, a greater one is prepared,” Nostradamus recounted in his grim verse about 2021. “The Great Mover renews the ages: / Rain, blood, milk, famine, steel, and plague, / Is the heavens fire seen, a long spark running.”
Despite the fact that the year mentioned is indeed this - new - year, Nostradamus’s predictions are often believed to be extremely far-fetched and therefore open to a myriad of interpretations, providing fodder for doomsday preachers. And that could really put some people’s minds at ease.