You might want to hold off on punching your boss in the face when you leave work on Friday. According to NASA, reports that Earth is coming to an end Saturday simply aren't true.
Recent stories carrying such headlines as "Largest Planet-Killer Asteroid Arriving on Saturday" and "Radars Track a 20K MPH Space Rock" claim a huge asteroid is due to collide with Earth the day after Valentine's Day, wiping out life as we know it. While NASA officials say asteroid 2002 PZ39 is indeed on its way toward our planet, it's expected to pass right by without even kicking up any dust. "It will pass by Earth at a distance of about 3.59 million miles," a NASA official tells Snopes.com. "The asteroid will approach no closer than about 15 times the distance of the moon."
While some people might even find 3.59 million miles to be too close for comfort, the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies reports this sort of thing happens all the time. In the next month alone, at least 20 asteroids are expected to safely zoom past Earth, according to the agency.