[Popman]

Maybe some of the more scientific freepers can help me out here, but I have a problem believing a large rock moving at several thousand miles a hour hitting earth would cause catastrophe life ending damage to our planet.

I think it's more like a grain of sand hitting a basketball.

Massive tidal waves ? Yes. End of life. ??????

[C210N]

A large rock could indeed wipe out civilization... the scenario would be darkening the atmosphere for a few years wreaking havoc on the climate. Case in point is the volcano, I think it was around 1888 or so, that caused the "year without a summer"; of course, the detestation would have to MUCHO larger than that. Another data point is the theory that dinosaurs were wiped out with a meteoric impact.

But, more to the point of this thread: Any rock big enough to do this is not going to be convinced to go elsewhere just because humans spend a bunch of trillions of dollars and devastate the global economy to alter its path. Not a single inch, or degree of trajectory, would it be diverted.

[PIF]

ELE as far as humans are concerned - nothing new however. Happened before numerous times - some life would survive and things would start over, just as they always do.

“a grain of sand hitting a basketball”

A grain of sand traveling at 40,000 mph hitting a basketball at an oblique angle makes a real mess. There is a real time shot of this happening in a lab on some TV - Discovery, History, N Geo. one of them.