Neil deGrasse Tyson predicted the exact date asteroid could hit Earth in old video

This small-sized asteroid has been considered a major threat to the planet.

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Neha B.

Sep 24, 2024

By Neha B.

September 24, 2024

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Photo credit: Near-Earth asteroid, computer artwork (Getty Images) – Representative Cover Image Source: Neil deGrasse Tyson speaks during a Q&A on March 17, 2024 (Photo by John Lamparski/Getty Images)

About 4.6 billion years ago, the formation of the solar system left behind solid debris tumbling through space. These remnants, known as “asteroids,” typically orbit the Sun and are concentrated in the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars. However, Jupiter’s gravity occasionally pulls an asteroid from its path, sending it hurtling through the solar system—sometimes toward Earth.

Representative Image Source: Dangerous asteroid hits planet Earth, total disaster and life extinction, elements of this image furnished by NASA (Getty Images)

Since a mountain-sized asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago, Earth has not experienced a major impact event. However, in a 2007 interview with Conan O’Brien, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson made a chilling prediction. He warned that a massive asteroid named “Apophis” could potentially collide with Earth in 2029, a prediction that continues to resurface in discussions today.

Tyson estimated that Apophis will get close to the Earth on April 13, 2029, and will dip even lower than most of the Earth’s communication satellites. It will be the “biggest closest thing known to come near the Earth,” he described. The communication satellites, Tyson explained, are geosynchronous orbits about 23,000 miles up. “This [Apophis] will come around 18,000 miles,” he said, and revealed that, “It will be visible from northern Europe.” According to Tyson, this asteroid approaching the planet will look like a “fast-moving bright object across the night sky, moving at about, probably 10 miles per second.”

https://youtube.com/watch?v=xRyYJm47zv0%3Fsi%3D-Z26zpAQhLHC-cic

First discovered in 2004, the Apophis was identified as “one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth,” according to NASA. This treacherous celestial object looks like a “two-lobed peanut.” Surprisingly, the size of this asteroid is not a major issue. According to NASA, it is only 1,100 feet (340 meters) in width.

Representative Image Source: Near-Earth asteroid, computer artwork. (Getty Images)

However, since the time of its discovery, it has been considered a major threat to the planet. Tyson said that the threat is depicted in its name itself. Apophis is named after the Egyptian god of death and darkness, which, he said, illustrates how dangerous it could be for humans. If it was not considered dangerous, scientists would have never named it “Apophis,” but rather a regular name like Bambi, Tiffany, or Fredy.

via GIPHY

“Its orbit remains sufficiently uncertain,” Tyson explained and added that if Apophis enters the “Keyhole,” which is a range of about 600 to 700 miles, then Earth’s gravity will be just right, or rather just wrong. “It will alter its orbit so it will hit us seven years later.” However, the likelihood of the asteroid making its way through the Keyhole is several in a million, he said.

However, NASA reports that after a March 2021 radar-observation campaign, scientists have assured that there is no risk of Apophis impacting Earth for at least a century. At this time, when Apophis flitted past the Earth at a safe distance, scientists used high-powered radar instruments to calculate the estimate of its orbit around the Sun. They concluded that the asteroid won’t impact the Earth anytime before 2068. NASA’s “Asteroid Watch,” which tracks and detects asteroids, will also send a spacecraft to study Apophis during its 2029 temporary flyby. So the question of whether Apophis will collide with the planet or not, cannot be answered definitely until 2029.

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Photo credit: Canva – Donkeys and other livestock could help prevent mass wildfires.

Environment, Science

A Spanish park has been free of wildfires for over a decade thanks to 18 donkeys

Gnawing our way to a wildfire solution.

Erik Barnes

7/9/2026

According to NASA, wildfires have doubled worldwide due to climate change. Throughout the globe, governments and environmentalists have been trying to find ways to curb the fires. One particular national park in Spain has found a solution that has been keeping them fire-free for over a decade: donkeys.

Since 2014, the Firefighting Donkey Battalion unit consisting of 18 donkeys has been preventing wildfires in Doñana National Park in Doñana, Spain. The mission these donkeys do is simple: eat the dry brush that usually sparks and fuels wildfires. The donkeys spend up to seven hours a day using their voracious appetites to graze and clear a 130 by 50 feet area of dried grass, scrub, and other vegetation.

Why donkeys?

While humans can do this type of clearing out of dry brush, using donkeys for this work is arguably more effective. While it is a slower process, it is consistent and thorough. Donkeys are able to quietly patrol in areas that are inaccessible to vehicles. In exchange for the feasting, the donkeys get about eight gallons of water and rest. No money or fuel needed.

The donkeys’ bodies are also pretty much built for this kind of environmental work, too. Their stomachs are built to eat the same rough and dry grass repeatedly without issues. These daily grazings slowly but surely remove potential origin sources for fires. As a bonus, the donkeys are naturally disposing of the dried vegetation whereas humans would have to find a different way to dispose of it.

Having donkeys or other livestock graze in such areas was once more common in agriculture prior to modern farming. Some argue that the machinization of farming and urbanization have reduced the number of grazing animals. This in turn allows more vegetation growth that become dry spots for more wildfires to occur.

The method expands

This method has been so successful that other areas of Spain have adopted it. In 2020, Tivissa launched the Burros Bomberos project with three donkeys to so much success they’ve expanded. They now have 40 donkeys grazing and clearing nearly 400 hectares of land.

The Andrea Association in Allariz uses a team of donkeys to clear and maintain nearly 1,000 hectares of a biosphere reserve. Using GPS to monitor the donkeys’ activity, the group of grazers travel 19 kilometers per day to feed. Similar initiatives have since started in Basque Country, Catalonia, and Galicia, too.

Other ways to combat wildfires

In the United States, California has been using goats in a similar function. The group Fire Grazers Inc. has been contacted throughout California to bring hundreds of goats to eat dried vegetation. Much like donkeys, goats are built to eat rough and dry brush. This includes certain plants such as star thistle that are painful for human hands to grab.

It’s important to note that donkeys or other animals that eat dry scrub are the primary solution to wildfires. The same folks behind these initiatives also advocate proper forest planning and land management. This includes reducing the amount of easily flammable species of plants and trees such as pine. It takes thought, care, work, and maybe a bunch of donkeys to make a difference.

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Photo credit: SKashkin/iStock / Getty Images Plus – Does that look tasty?

Environment, Science

Beyond birds and mice, free‑ranging cats eat a surprising number of insects

Cats’ wild diet goes far beyond birds and mice

Good Partner

7/8/2026

Christopher A. Lepczyk

Daniel Rubinoff

Jean E. Fantle-Lepczyk

It’s pretty commonly known, and not very startling, that free-ranging cats eat birds and small rodents. But the degree to which they eat insects might surprise you.

We are biologists who for many years have been trying to figure out what feral or outdoor-roaming pet cats eat outside.

When domesticated cats – Felis catus – live freely in the wild or are allowed to hunt outside the homes where their owners live, they are an invasive species, which live in every ecosystem of the world except the continent of Antarctica. We wanted to know all of the species they eat – and to what degree free-ranging cats are eating endangered or threatened species.

Examining reams of research

Over the past two decades, we have evaluated hundreds of scientific findings, including searching through Google Scholar and Web of Science using the keywords “cat predation,” “feral cat,” “cat diet” and “Felis catus.” For each item we found, whether peer-reviewed or not, we evaluated whether it contained conclusive evidence of cat diet or predation. We also reviewed each one’s reference section for additional unique articles or databases pertaining to cat diet and predation, and included those in our search.

Overall, we identified 533 unique publications – books, journal articles, theses and agency reports – that reported specific animal species consumed by cats. Cats’ plant-eating habits are occasionally, but haphazardly, noted in studies, so we did not include them in our analysis.

Our initial work focused on an overall assessment of what free-ranging cats eat around the world. Published in 2023, this paper analyzed the 533 studies on cat diet or predation events published over more than a century and found that cats ate nearly 2,100 different species of animals, including invertebrates.

Of those 2,100, the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Red List of Threatened Species listed 347 as “near threatened,” “vulnerable,” “endangered,” “critically endangered” or “extinct” in 2023. Some of the species went extinct during the many decades covered by the data.

Insects and the like

Most of the species cats ate were vertebrates – mostly birds, followed by mammals and reptiles. But the data also indicated that at least 7% of the species cats eat are insects and other invertebrates, particularly beetles, and less frequently crustaceans, arachnids, centipedes, snails and slugs, and millipedes.

Many of the cat studies we reviewed did not report on how many individuals of a given species cats ate, so it was unclear what the total amount of insects was or how many calories cats are deriving from insects.

Invertebrates make up more than 70% of all terrestrial animal species and are important pollinators, predators and herbivores in virtually every nonmarine ecosystem. Many invertebrates are in decline globally due to urbanization, habitat destruction, increases in both light and pesticide pollution, and climate change. So we dug deeper into the data to understand what invertebrates cats are eating.

While a little more than one-third of all the studies we analyzed included invertebrates as part of cats’ diet, most of those failed to identify specific species of invertebrates. But we were able to find identifications of 148 invertebrate species.

Of those, two are considered endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature: the Aldabran grasshopper (Pternoscirtus aldabrae) in Seychelles and the Tasmanian giant freshwater crayfish (Astacopsis gouldi), which can grow up to 13 pounds (6 kilograms). Two others are considered vulnerable: wētāpunga (Deinacrida heteracantha), an insect native to New Zealand that can be about the size of a mouse, and the common yabby (Cherax destructor), a freshwater crayfish native to southeastern Australia. One other, the Canary Islands horned beetle (Arhopalus pinetorum), is listed as “near threatened.”

Not surprising: Cat eats mouse. Julian Stratenschulte/picture alliance via Getty Images

Effects on populations

We have not found formal research evaluating how cats’ eating habits affect invertebrate populations. And for many species, they are likely not as significant a factor as wide-scale pesticide use.

But it’s possible that cats could be significant contributors to the deaths of rare species or in specific locations.

Cats require a large amount of protein, as much as one-third of their daily diet, and invertebrates are good sources of protein.

In many places, invertebrates provide an easy source of food. Whether in an urban backyard or on a remote island, cats are unlikely to turn a blind eye to available prey. And some cats may find it entertaining to chase, catch and eat insects even if they don’t need their nutrition.

A challenge of researching this question is that many invertebrates are relatively small, which makes direct observation in the field harder and can require more analytical approaches in the lab. And they have soft bodies, without distinguishing characteristics that could be easily recognized in scat or stomach contents.

However, molecular technologies can identify species using trace amounts of DNA left in the environment by animals. Promising new studies are beginning to identify what cats eat by analyzing the DNA found in their stomachs and scat. That research may help explore in even more detail what cats are eating in the outdoors, and how it’s affecting various species and the environment as a whole.

This article originally appeared on The Conversation. You can read it here.

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Photo credit: Canva – Plastic bottles, left, and an airplane.

Environment, Science

The University of Cambridge found a way to reduce plastic waste and create clean hydrogen energy at the same time

Turn plastic into green power.

Erik Barnes

7/8/2026

The world’s top environmental concerns come down to two basics: reducing waste and creating clean energy. Thanks to researchers at the University of Cambridge, we may be able to tackle both with a single solution.

Inspired by a previous solar-powered reactor the team created that turned carbon dioxide and plastic waste into fuel and useful chemicals, the researchers developed a new device that uses sunlight to break down plastic into hydrogen.

“Converting waste streams into valuable products using clean energy sources is…an attractive strategy to address both energy and environmental concerns,” the team wrote in Nature Chemical Engineering.

How does this device work?

The reactor is relatively simple compared to others of its kind. The researchers sprayed a light-absorbing material onto a glass panel. They then added a second layer of molecules containing zirconium and cobalt to act as the catalyst for the reaction. All told, the device measures about one square meter and was tested under natural sunlight.

Under sunlight, the device was able to extract hydrogen from sliced-up plastic bottles. It also extracted hydrogen from glucose and cellulose. This means the device can produce hydrogen from both plastic and plant waste.

Hit two problems with one device

This could help reduce a rapidly growing problem. The world produces more than 359 million tons of plastic each year, much of which ends up in landfills. Most modern plastics take 100 to 1,000 years to decompose. Much of the plastic polluting our land and oceans comes from food packaging, including water bottles. This device can turn those plastics into a cleaner fuel source. It could also help address the growing problem of microplastics contaminating drinking water and soil.

Hydrogen is a powerful fuel for trucks, ships, and airplanes, and demand for it is growing. Because it typically produces only water as a byproduct, it is a highly sought-after source of clean energy. While there are green methods for producing hydrogen using solar and wind power, a significant amount of the world’s hydrogen still comes from natural gas. In other words, while hydrogen itself is a clean source of energy, the way much of it is produced is not.

Could this device work realistically on a global scale?

The use of spray coating and relatively simple materials makes this new reactor easier to manufacture.

“What surprised me was, after all the optimization, just how simple it is,” researcher Ariffin Bin Mohamad Annuar said in a press release. “We just have this huge panel, we spray our catalyst on it, put it into our solution, put it under the sun, and it produces hydrogen and other valuable chemicals just from plastic waste. It’s just simple and scalable.”

The team says that before they can make the device commercially available, they hope to make it more durable and efficient. Time will tell whether it becomes a solution to both problems as it becomes more widely available.

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