Kate Dibiasky, a Michigan State University astronomy PhD student doing work with the Subaru Telescope, discovers a previously unknown near-Earth object. Her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, calculates that the comet will impact Earth in about six months, and is large enough to cause a planet-wide extinction event. NASA internally confirms Mindy’s calculations.
Accompanied by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office head Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, Dibiasky and Mindy present their findings to the White House but are met with apathy from President Janie Orlean and her son, Chief of Staff Jason Orlean.
Oglethorpe urges Dibiasky and Mindy to leak the news to the media, which they do on a morning talk show hosted by Brie Evantee and Jack Bremmer. When the hosts do not take the threat seriously, Dibiasky loses her composure and rants about the threat, prompting widespread online mockery.
Dibiasky’s boyfriend publicly denounces her, while Mindy receives public approval. The actual news about the comet’s threat receives little public attention. Furthermore, the threat of the comet is publicly denied by Orlean’s Director of NASA, a top donor to Orlean with no background in astronomy.
When Orlean is involved in a sex scandal, she diverts attention and improves her approval ratings by confirming the threat of the comet and announcing a project to launch a spacecraft that can strike and divert the comet using nuclear weapons.