Watching the end of the world go by

A cult in the NBC comedy "Parks and Recreation" took over one of the town's parks for an "end of the world" party in Thursday night's episode, but, of course, had to reserve another day when "Zorp" refused to appear.

A group of scientists is holding its own end of the world party this weekend, but they not expecting an actual cataclysm, only planning to watch one go by.

An asteroid the size of an aircraft carrier will whiz past earth at 30,000 mph, 202,000 miles away -- just inside the orbit of the moon on Tuesday.

The rock, YU55, which swings inside the orbit of Venus and then out near Mars, isn't expected to be a threat for the next century or so.

But if it ever does hit the earth, even Zorp would be impressed.

Jay Melosh of Purdue University said that YU55 would explode like 500 nuclear bombs, trigger a 7.0 magnitude earthquake, and, if it splashed down in the ocean, generate a 70-foot tsunami.

NASA's Nearth Earth Object Program, started in the 1980s, thinks it has detected more than 90 percent of the "planet kiler" asteroids, those bigger than a kilometer in diameter. None of them is expected to hit the Earth anytime soon.

The last big one that did, scientists say, was about seven miles wide, and blew a crater in the Yucatan and wiped out the dinosaurs.

So what if we did see one coming our way?

If there's anything that justifies nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them, the job of diverting a "planet killer" fills the bill.

Let's just hope we would have the time, and will, to use them.