Twitter users are facing the earth-shattering news today that they will have to survive without tweet notifications of impending asteroid strikes.
In a final tweet before suspension, Nasa’s Asteroid Watch Twitter account admitted that the service has been switched off as part of the US government‘s Congress stalemate-induced shutdown.
“In the event of government shutdown, we will not be posting or responding from this account. We sincerely hope to resume tweets soon,” it said in a tweet on 30 September.
More than a million Twitter users rely on the service for advanced notice of asteroid strikes.
Although the US government shutdown is having an effect on Nasa’s operations, thankfully “many observatories, astronomers are [still] watching the skies,” according to Nasa, with a list of near-Earth objects continuing to be updated as part of the Near Earth Object Program.
Nasa will be forced to furlough almost all of its employees due to the US government shutdown, although a core group of staff will continue to support the International Space Station from mission control in Houston.
An estimated 800,000 federal workers will be forced to stay at home during the shutdown, and will have an immediate affect on the fragile US economy and services, Barack Obama has warned.
• After weeks of wrangling, the American government has been forced into a shutdown over politics and Obamacare
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