When the Asteroid Hits: Earth Impacts and Extinction Events in Popular Culture

The incomprehensible notion of a very large chunk of ice or rock from outer space smashing into the Earth has only become mainstream within the past two centuries. Though early writers imagined the utterly fantastic consequences of comet collisions and speculated on the devastation they might wreak, it was not until the 1980s when scientists finally resolved that dinosaurs were extinguished by an asteroid 66 million years ago. This startling announcement captivated the media and tilted the science fiction world but in reality, history may have been punctuated repeatedly by such events. This book compiles often controversial and historically transforming ideas of asteroid, comet, and planetary impacts with Earth spanning two centuries of popular intrigue. It begins with the first realization of extinctions in fossil records to the new millennium reflected in scores of sci-fi stories, films, and televised science documentaries. The author examines social and geopolitical fears tied to the prospect of a certain cosmic-borne catastrophe. Science, fiction, and speculation are artfully melded through a dozen chapters, followed by an epilogue and appendix profiling many fantastic considerations of civilization's pending impact apocalypse.