Just when you thought there isn't anything else to worry about, NASA has started a program to attempt to track asteroids that might be on a collision course with the earth. In fact, there was a direct hit in the northern hemisphere over Russia back in 2013:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chelyabinsk_meteor

Seems that the northern polar region has more than its share of impacts and the latest one is the worst since the infamous Tunguska meteor in 1906. I sometimes wonder if (more like when) the human species might fall prey to the incident that extincted the dinosaurs.

 

It was discussed in detail when it happened.

https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/meteorite-crash-in-russia.671921/
https://www.physicsforums.com/threads/killer-asteroids.717504/

 

Bet they thought someone had launched a nuke and WW-3 was getting ready to start.