Some day, scientists have been telling us for some years now, we'll have to deal with an incoming asteroid or comet that would destroy civilization at worst or wipe out a city at least.
Big impacts have occurred before, and there will be more. But we don't know enough about space rocks and their composition to plan properly for deflecting or destroying such a menace. Turnabout proved to be fair play when NASA's mission - Deep Impact, slammed a probe into Comet Tempel 1 on the 4th of July.
The upshot..... This comet was fluffy, unlike others that have been studied up close.
Meanwhile, a group of scientists and astronauts prodded NASA to visit asteroid Apophis, which has a slight chance of hitting us a few decades hence. NASA's responsive: A purely scientific mission might be considered, but we have plenty of time to mount a diversion if further observations show this thing would really hit.
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