Surprise: Mercury Won't Crash Into Earth Anytime Soon

Surprise: Mercury Won't Crash Into Earth Anytime Soon
Scientists have long theorized that there is a small chance that the planet Mercury could collide with Earth one day, which would destroy life on our planet. Now, those chances are even smaller than previously believed. Richard Zeebe, a professor at the University of Hawaii, Manoa, ran 1,600 simulations of the solar system on the university's Intel Xeon-based Cray CS300 system, and not once did Mercury hit Earth over a 5-billion-year period, according to an article in Science. Zeebe said the chance of such a collision is "extremely slim."