Meteor

The meteor is a natural disaster that will impact the Eco world in 30 real-life days on default settings.

Players can research technology to counteract the meteor by destroying it.

Configuring the Meteor
In server configuration, the time until meteor impact can be changed, or the meteor can be disabled entirely.

Destroying the Meteor
Players can research technology to counteract the meteor, ultimately destroying it by building four lasers and a Computer Lab, along with a large amount of power.

The lasers need to have the meteor in sight to activate and they take 30 seconds to charge, so don't wait till 0 seconds to turn them on.  Spoiler Image: Destroyed Meteor

Meteor Impact
The meteor can be seen in the sky displaying the time until it impacts the world. Once the time reaches zero the meteor will begin to fall and hit the world. The first hit of the meteor will cause an explosion and leave a very large crater on the surface of the world.

After the initial impact the sky will turn a stormy green and grey as a meteor shower begins. Smaller meteors will randomly fall leaving craters all over the surface of the world. This goes for a some time—about 8 and a half minutes—but will stop.

The meteor will not kill the player regardless of how far or close they are to the impact location.

 Spoiler Image: Meteor Explosion

Post-Meteor World
After the meteor shower stops the sky will return to normal and the world will resume only with a lot of craters over the surface, maybe a few destroyed buildings, and possibly less plant and animal life.

Its up to the players to restore the world from this state.

Easter Eggs
There is a profile picture of what appears to be John Krajewski, project lead and designer of Eco, on the meteor. One can see this closely as the meteor travels around the world at height 150. The image appears to be taken from the Serious Play Conference - http://seriousplayconf.com/speaker/john-krajewski/.