Something’s moving towards our planet that could end all life on Earth. It's a regular needle weighing about 5 grams. You’re probably wondering why it’s so dangerous. The biggest rock to ever hit our planet was the Hoba meteorite. It weighed about 60 tons. It fell to Earth around 80,000 years ago and caused a lot of damage. Would something as small as our sewing needle be able to have the same effect?

The idea itself is hypothetical, so it leaves us with a bunch of questions. Here’s the first one: What happens to a sewing needle in space? Could it actually accelerate to the speed of light? The thing we know for sure is that small things traveling at almost the speed of light would have more energy in them than really big but slow-moving objects. So our speedy needle would hit the ground really hard. But could such a big explosion really destroy our entire planet?

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