In my ceaseless vigil to find my loyal audience misleading and amusing headlines I take a look at quite a few stories but I think this is a first for me. I’ve found a story in the Huffington Post and a story in the Inquisitr that are not only about the same subject but actually use the same graphic in their headline!

The two stories actually say pretty much the same thing and are fairly interesting to anyone who follows space news. The headlines; both in the Yahoo news aggregation and on the stories themselves, tell completely different stories.

The Inquisitr blares: Asteroid Hurtling To Earth: Could Lead To Human Extinction

Huffington says: Astronomers Think This Cosmic Rubble Pile May Show Us How To Avert An Asteroid Disaster

What’s interesting to me is the grasping headlines are in such stark contrast to the reasonably written stories. Anyway, take a look at both if you have time. It’s a good lesson in how much power the headline has over our perception of the story as a whole.

I’ll sum up in case you don’t have time. A large pile of rubble is heading towards the earth. It’s not a solid rock but a group of smaller pieces held together by both gravity and something called Van de Waals forces. It might prove quite simple to disrupt an asteroid conglomeration of this nature and doing so might teach us valuable lessons. If we can break up this relatively minor threat we are better equipped to understand how to do so in the future.

Tom Liberman
Sword and Sorcery Fantasy with a Libertarian Edge
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