It's Coming Right At Us!

An enormous cloud of gas called the "Smith Cloud" or "Smith's Cloud" is headed right at the Milky Way galaxy at about 54,000 miles per hour. It's 11,000 light years long and 2,500 light years wide, and it's got its own magnetic field that will keep it from being cooked in the million-degree band of gas that surrounds the galaxy. The cloud was discovered in 1963 by astronomy student Gail Bieger, but was named Smith's Cloud because she found it before she got married and immense clouds of gas do not have to change their names.

And it'll be here sometime between the year 30,002,014 and 40,002,014. Give or take.

Should we be around then (our sun will still have close to 5 billion years left on its meter, but there's no guarantees for carbon-based life forms dumb enough to watch Anchorman 2), we'll probably be OK because the projected point of impact is somewhere in the galaxy's Perseus Arm and we are comfortably a couple of arms over in the Orion-Cygnus Arm.

Since the cloud is made up of hydrogen, the most likely result of its streaming into the multiple gravity wells and eddies of a galaxy is the triggering of a round of star formation. The gravity will cause the cloud to start to clump, and continuing clumping is the way small pockets of hydrogen turn into large ones which may turn into stars.

If for some reason Smith's Cloud takes a little turn and heads for our planet, NASA has already developed a defense plan, which can be implemented immediately even though the cloud is sbout 40,000 light years away. An equally immense cloud of hot gas will be directed at Smith's Cloud, which should negate the interloper's velocity and act something like a firebreak.

The "counter-cloud" will be generated by aiming Vice-President Joe Biden at the section of sky which contains Smith's Cloud and asking him to tell what he thinks he knows. This request must be worded carefully though, because if the Vice-President is asked to tell what he actually knows the resulting cloud of hot gas will not be large enough to affect an incoming turnip.