Meteorite impact

In the history of the Earth, it is widely accepted that several large meteorites have hit Earth. The Cretaceous-Tertiary asteroid, for example, is theorized to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. If such an object struck Earth it could have a serious impact on civilization. It's even possible that humanity would be completely destroyed: for this, the asteroid would need to be at least 1 km (0.6 miles) in diameter, but probably between 3–10 km (2–6 miles). Asteroids with a 1 km diameter impact the Earth every 0.5 million years[4] on average. Larger asteroids are less common. The last large (>10 km) impact happened 65 million years ago. So-called Near-Earth asteroids are regularly being observed.

Some scientists believe there are patterns in the number of meteorites hitting Earth. An interesting explanation of such a pattern is given by the hypothetical star Nemesis. This hypothesis states that a star named Nemesis regularly passes through a denser part of the Oort cloud, causing meteorite rains to collide onto Earth. However, the very existence of this pattern is not widely accepted, and the existence of the Nemesis star is highly contested.

A star passage that will cause an increase of meteorites is the arrival of a star called Gliese 710. This star is probably moving on a collision course with the Solar System and will likely be at a distance 1.1 light years from the Sun in 1.4 million years.