Once again, NASA has stepped into the apocalypse fray to tell the world that if the world ends in September 2015, it won't be because of an asteroid.
There has been a rumor circling for some time that a very large asteroid will strike and demolish the Earth sometime between Sept. 15 and Sept. 28. The prediction comes from Efrain Rodriguez, who wrote an open letter to the space agency back in 2010 about the Earth's imminent demise. He said:
God warns the island [of Puerto Rico] that an asteroid is coming, and will soon be visible in the alarm systems of NASA, and the computer scientists and observers of the world will see it.
Though Rodriguez clarified that "the date of Sep 23, or 24 of 2015 as the fulfillment date for the asteroid impact does NOT come from us." Rodriguez's sister confirmed to Fusion in June, however, that “the asteroid will destroy Earth,” so there's no confusion there.
NASA has repeatedly said that this is not the case. NASA's Near Earth Observatory keeps tabs on Earth-bound asteroids, and will only be alarmed if one is scheduled to come within about 20,000 miles of Earth.
In a statement, NASA's Paul Chodas said, "There is no scientific basis—not one shred of evidence—that an asteroid or any other celestial object will impact Earth on those dates." He added, "if there were any object large enough to do that type of destruction in September, we would have seen something of it by now." Sounds pretty reasonable!
Danielle Wiener-Bronner is a news reporter.