What’s scary about our solar system is we don’t get to enjoy any good news about it before more bad news brings us right back down to earth.

NASA just announced new research shows life on this planet is not as likely as once thought to be wiped out by an asteroid. “The risk of a really large asteroid impacting the Earth before we could find and warn of it has been substantially reduced,” said one expert.

So we’ll have time to wish we could evacuate.

Asteroids larger than 3,300 feet, or one kilometer, would have “global consequences” if they hit Earth, NASA says.

It estimates only 981 of those big asteroids orbit near Earth, and researchers so far have tracked down 911 of them.

Also, not as many mid-size near-Earth asteroids as expected are out there, NASA says.

“Mid-size” means 330 to 3,300 feet. “Near Earth” means orbiting within 120 million miles of the sun.

After scanning space with an infrared camera, astronomers estimate 19,500 of those are swooping by, unlike the 35,000 they’d expected. So far they’ve found 5,200.

NASA says one of those could destroy a metropolis.

So one could hit Washington, D.C., while Congress is in session and everyone else has fled.

An asteroid also could help areas devastated by the real-estate bubble -- like along the Gulf coast where the view is marred by half-finished condos.

It would be like, BOOM! Problem solved, leaving nothing but a new bay by which to build seafood shacks and rental houses.

So that’s good news, but don’t let your optimism fly too close to the sun, because this in no way reduces your risk of being probed by space aliens.

A UFO newsletter says a woman in Gulf Breeze, Fla., was awakened about 3 a.m. by a “terrific jabbing pain” in her back.

She sat up and saw a “large human like figure” walking to her front door, holstering a big syringe on his hip.

“Things are still happening here in Gulf Breeze, and now ... ‘glowing type’ footprints are appearing continually everywhere on my carpet during the night!” she said. “Why do full grown aliens walk around in our homes?”

And why are they always in Florida? Are they retiring there? Have they fled Alabama because of its immigration law?

NASA should probe that.

So anyway, don’t worry so much about being killed by an asteroid.

Worry about being backstabbed by a space alien in Florida.

Tim Chitwood, tchitwood@ledger-enquirer.com, 706-571-8508.