Most folks my age pretty much assume we’ll never see a cent from the Social Security fund. Until now, I always figured that was because the politicians in power are too interested in pandering to voters to bother fixing a system that is so internally flawed.

Now it sounds as if the political foot-dragging won’t matter much, anyway, since we’ll all most likely be dead.

Humans live in a vast solar system where 2,000 feet seems a razor-thin distance.

Yet it’s just wide enough to trigger concerns that an asteroid due to buzz Earth on April 13, 2029 may shift its orbit enough to return and strike the planet seven years later.

The concern: Within the object’s range of possible fly-by distances lie a handful of gravitational “sweet spots,” areas some 2,000 feet across that are also known as keyholes.

The physics may sound complex, but the potential ramifications are plain enough. If the asteroid passes through the most probable keyhole, its new orbit would send it slamming into Earth in 2036. (Source: CS Monitor.)

Ah, well. Sixty-nine isn’t such a bad age to die.

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