On October 20, 2021, asteroid 2021 PDC collides with our planet, causing an unknown amount of catastrophic destruction. What’s the only caveat? Asteroid 2021 PDC is fake. It’s not real. It never existed. It’s a “made-up space rock” inserted into a pretend disaster scenario dubbed a “hypothetical” by the NASA scientists running the simulation at the 2021 Planetary Defense Conference last week.
Once every other year, this International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) symposium gathers together the topmost experts in asteroid impact, involving entities like the European Space Agency (ESA) and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), the latter which hosted this year’s event. This “hypothetical” exercise has been a staple at the Planetary Defense Conference for the past four conferences, with a new “alternate reality playing out” each time.
The Next Armageddon?
During this most recent scenario, which took place April 26–30, the initial phase showed the asteroid’s size to be in the wide range of 100 to 2,300 feet across. Space.com helpfully explains that such an object’s size would range “anywhere from about half the wingspan of a 747 airplane to approaching twice the height of the Empire State Building.” A report by SciTechDaily.com stated that if the imaginary mega-rock were real, it would end up “‘destroying’ a region about 100 km wide near the Czech Republic and German border.”
Next, the scientists spent time “[considering] a few techniques for keeping a threatening asteroid away,” the possible solutions that sound suspiciously like a 1990s action film of a similar premise
Finally, a conclusion was reached: “Catastrophe would be unavoidable, even given six months to prepare.” Or, to put it more bluntly: “There is currently no technology on Earth that could stop a massive asteroid from wiping out Europe, according to a [simulation] carried out by leading space agencies.”
Said one of the lead participants Brent Barbee, “It’s much better to find these objects as far in advance as possible of their Earth-impact dates, which makes it much easier for us to deal with them using spacecraft missions.” In other words, as SciTechDaily pointed out, “We can only prevent what we can predict.”
And not to be outdone, billionaire space enthusiast Elon Musk also weighed in, lamenting that “the lack of solution was ‘one of many reasons why we need larger and more advanced rockets’” and touting his aerospace company SpaceX’s “next-generation Starship spacecraft, which is being built to transport people and cargo around the Solar System,” as a potential problem solver. SpaceX just completed its second successful round trip to the International Space Station on May 2.
Daniel 2, Anyone?
The notion of an asteroid rocketing toward Earth and taking out a vast “swath of central Europe” is alarming, of course, but Bible students may sense an echo of an ancient prophecy found in the book of Daniel.
There, in Chapter 2, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon has a dream. After he challenges his court astrologers to tell him both the dream and its meaning, it is one of the Hebrew captives serving in the king’s court—Daniel—who achieves the task. Given the answer directly by God, Daniel tells the king about a large statue composed of various metals. At the end of the dream, “a stone … cut out without hands” (Daniel 2:34) destroys the statue before growing into “a great mountain [that] filled the whole earth” (v. 35).
But this stone is no asteroid. It is a symbol for God’s everlasting kingdom. As Daniel interpreted, “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom which shall never be destroyed; and the kingdom shall not be left to other people; it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms, and it shall stand forever. Inasmuch as you saw that the stone was cut out of the mountain without hands, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold” (vv. 44, 45).
More than 500 years later, Jesus of Nazareth told His disciples of the signs that would herald the world’s end: “There will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be. And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved” (Matthew 24:21, 22). There will be wars, diseases, natural disasters (vv. 7–9), and a religious deception so great that even Christians will be taken in by it (v. 24).
The world’s greatest threat is not external—it is internal. In fact, it’s already here, right on our planet, hiding in plain sight. Instead of looking into their telescopes and computers for the next unidentified enemy, our scientists might think to focus on the Word of God, “the prophetic word confirmed, … as a light that shines in a dark place” (2 Peter 1:19). In it are the only predictions on which anyone can fully depend.
It is likewise a shame that these same scientists are not searching for the most wonderful near-Earth object to ever grace our planet, the Savior Himself. It is He who will be coming in the sky at the end of the world—not to annihilate mankind but to deliver the faithful.
Recently, Pastor Doug Batchelor answered questions about the end of the world in a Bible Answers Live broadcast, “And Then the End Shall Come.” And his truth-filled message “Armageddon Countdown” will teach you exactly what the Bible says will and will not happen in the last days of this planet.
Don’t be deceived or distracted by man’s solutions to the world’s problems. God and God alone can give you peace, faith, and life beyond this sinful world! Find out how today.