Defending the Impact: Rationalizing Massive Meteor Strikes Despite Scientific Evidence

Despite scientists' efforts to document all known larger space rocks and reduce the odds of an imminent extinction-level impact, science fiction authors can still find ways to justify huge rocks smashing into Earth in their works. These include setting the story far enough in the past, presenting an impactor so huge that knowing about it beforehand is virtually useless, smaller rocks causing regional impacts, deliberate human orchestration, and lack of political will to prevent the impact.