No tweets will be coming from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Near Earth Object Office due to the government shut that began this morning at 12:01 am.

We are now left to fend for ourselves; meaning that in the event of a collision course asteroid rocketing towards our tiny blue marble, we will now have no clue that "the end is near," and we will unwittingly continue to live our lives happy in our ignorance. This might be the best thing to come out of the shutdown so far.



The Washington Post mockingly reports that, yes, this was a service NASA was providing. But don't worry too much, they later clarified that even in the event of a shutdown many astronomers and observatories will still be watching the sky. And it's actually sort of a big deal. Just this past February, an asteroid known as 2012 DA14 thought to be around 150 feet across came nearer to Earth than the Moon and even some weather and communications satellites. If it had been on a collision course with Earth, it would have resulted in an explosion equivalent to around 2.4 million tons of TNT.

Aren't you comforted by the fact that 97 percent of NASA is currently furloughed now? I still think ignorance is bliss.