Earth should have been fine. PLOT HOLE
Near the end of the movie they say that the meteor will arrive a week early.
Pretty much means it's going to miss us. How the hell does the meteor still hit us?
Learn to science, hollywood.
The funniest side of this is how people think "scientists" can predict things to accuracy. Oh hail the great scientists and their meteor finding abilities.
Meteors are not stars. They do not emit light. They could have a tail made of some residue but that doesn't meant their prediction can be known so yes, a week early is plausible considering we can barely see the asteroids and meteors from the asteroid belt since little light is reflected from them - especially an object that would have a problematic trajectory since it hasn't been seen before.
Scientists only predict on observable evidence. If that evidence had never existed in the first place, how can they predict? We are discovering new things about our universe on a daily basis to the point we are discovering we are wrong about many things and know very little. A meteor arriving a week early, is the least of our problems on our hunger to "know".
http://rt.com/news/paint-asteroid-earth-nasa-767/
Your comment, unfortunately, shows the average level of scientific literacy in this country--or lack thereof. All the people talking about how this movie doesn't need to be accurate are just ignorant of basic facts that other developed countries take for granted.
It's like talking about driving across the Mississippi. If you don't know that's a river, of course you can ignore the plot hole.
We could find out, if want to, where to watch a solar eclipse a hundred years in advance. We can calculate how time passes faster on satellites than on Earth to billionths of a second (any mistake and they'd fly off to space or plunge to Earth)--and I'm not talking about clock errors, but that accurate clocks run faster on satellites. There are certain things we can't know yet, but there are lots of things we know to an almost incredible degree of certainty.
What I found funny about your post is that you use examples that are not even related to what I said.
You talk about "scientific literacy" as though it is defined and confined concept. That's strange.