Predictions For 2015: Asteroid Impact On Earth Has NASA Concerned, Not Just Pat Robertson

2015 predictions are already starting with a bang… literally, in the case of conspiracy theories. An asteroid impact on Earth has devastating potential, and NASA is concerned enough that they’ve created a hypothetical 2015 asteroid impact scenario as part of their Near Earth Object Observation Program.

In a related report by the Inquisitr, other predictions for 2015 have already been fairly dire. Based upon the recent ability to create an artificial virus, researchers are already talking about the potential advances in medicine and nanotechnology. But the same technology could be used to create a zombie apocalypse virus as a bioweapon. If that’s not scary enough, some experts believe World War 3 is inevitable due to economic reasons, and it’s possible Vladimir Putin’s claim over Arctic oil could be a trigger point since it’s believed worldwide oil reserves could run out by 2060.

Earlier in 2014, Pat Robertson made the dire prediction that an asteroid impact on Earth would occur since the scenario “fulfills the prophetic words of Jesus Christ… there isn’t anything else that will cause the seas to roil, that will cause the skies to darken, the moon and the sun not to give their light.” Although Robertson did not say it was a 2015 prediction, he does believe it’ll eventually happen.

“So, hey, just get ready… Get right… It could be next week, it could be 1,000 years from now. But nevertheless, we want to be ready whenever the Lord says, ‘I’m wrapping it up, and it’s time to come home.'”

Otherwise, there are conspiracy theorists who are making predictions for 2015 related to killer asteroid swarms. To put these claims into perspective, it’s also said that Vladimir Putin is “bringing the Russian masses up to speed about UFOs, ETs, and our relationship to them.”

One of the 2015 predictions we can safely make is that the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) will be completed early next year by a team of astronomers at the University of Hawaii. This asteroid impact early warning system consists of “two telecopes, 100 miles apart, which automatically scan the whole sky several times every night looking for moving objects.” Although ATLAS cannot make any predictions for 2015, it can “provide one day’s warning for a 30-kiloton ‘town killer,’ a week for a five-megaton ‘city killer,’ and three weeks for a 100-megaton ‘county killer.'”

One of those potential doomsday asteroids was the mountain-sized Asteroid 2014 UR116. Initial computation seemingly suggested that the asteroid could cross the Earth’s orbit, but NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have ruled out the possibility of asteroid 2014 UR116 hitting the earth for at least the next 150 years.

Scientists are also nice enough to maintain a NASA asteroid impact risk table that lists all of the potential near Earth objects that may be of concern. The table lists the years in which an asteroid may be in range of Earth and although the list of 2015 asteroids is fairly long the good news the Torino Impact Hazard Scale is a long list of zeroes, meaning that NASA feels “likelihood of a collision is zero, or is so low as to be effectively zero.”

That does not mean NASA scientists are not concerned at all. The 2015 IAA Planetary Defense Conference (PDC) being held in April of 2015 will include discussion of a fictional impact on Earth by Asteroid 2015 PDC in order to generate discussion. Over 100 scientists are also gathering in June of 2015 to raise awareness for three key issues.

• Employ the available technology to detect and track near-Earth asteroids that threaten human populations
• A rapid hundredfold (100x) acceleration of the discovery and tracking of near-Earth objects
• Global adoption of Asteroid Day on June 30, 2015, to heighten awareness of the asteroid hazard and efforts to prevent future impacts.

Asteroid Awareness Day is set for that particular date because of an asteroid strike on the Russian Siberia in 1908. The White House-sized asteroid made such an impact that it was estimated to be hundreds of times more powerful than the nuclear bomb dropped on Hiroshima during World War II, destroying around 800 square miles. Regardless of the threat, 2014 budget cuts at NASA had reduced the amount of asteroid research.

Are you concerned about any of the predictions for 2015 being made so far?