In its 3.7-billion-year history on Earth, life has had a few setbacks.
As far as we know, there have been five major extinction events where a significant percentage of species were wiped out of existence. Several things can cause such a dramatic destabilization of Earth’s life cycles, including super-volcanic eruptions, ice ages and pandemics.
However, another mechanism by which life faces existential threat is, of course, gigantic asteroid impacts. And when it comes to these rocks plunging into the surface of the planet we call home, a new evolutionary defense has emerged: human technology.
For the first time in history, a single species can identify such threats and deploy technology to either steer objects away from Earth or annihilate them before they reach us.
