Asteroids

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Best Defense Against Asteroids? Try Paintballs
 Best Defense Against 
 Asteroids? Try Paintballs 
in case you missed it
Nov 3, 2012 12:33 PM CDT

Best Defense Against Asteroids? Try Paintballs

MIT grad student wins award with novel idea

(Newser) - If an asteroid were speeding toward a calamitous collision with Earth, we might be able to knock it off track by ... painting it white. The PopSci blog picks up on the novel idea by MIT grad student Sung Wook Paek: Let's say scientists determined that an asteroid were going...

Private Mission Planned to Save Earth From Asteroids

With thousands of asteroids lurking, 'time's a wastin',' says B612 chairman

(Newser) - A California-based nonprofit group seeking to prevent the Earth from being struck by killer asteroids has announced plans to send an infrared telescope into space to hunt for dangerous near-Earth objects, reports Wired . The B612 Foundation's Sentinel Mission would be the first privately funded deep-space mission, aiming to put...

NASA Thinks 4,700 Asteroids Threaten Earth

And twice as many as previously believed are in orbits similar to Earth's

(Newser) - NASA thinks it's got a pretty solid estimate on the number of gigantic asteroids that could plausibly cause regional or global catastrophe by smashing into Earth: 4,700, give or take 1,500. Included in that number are all the rocks that exist, or which they suspect exist, that...

Asteroid-Mining Company Flooded With Applicants

Planetary Resources forced to stop accepting applications

(Newser) - Looking for a career in asteroid mining ? Get in line. Celestial treasure-hunting firm Planetary Resources put out a call three weeks ago for applicants, and was soon so swamped with resumes that it had to stop accepting them. According to an update on the company's website , spotted by...

Asteroid Flies Past Earth Closer Than Moon

NASA says we were never in danger

(Newser) - A 150-foot-wide asteroid whizzed stunningly close to Earth yesterday, passing within 143,000 miles of us—a hair more than half the distance from the Earth to the moon. NASA saw the rock coming two weeks ahead of time, and says there was never any danger of it actually hitting...

Hubble Spots Mysterious 'Flying X'

The lead investigators thinks it's the result of an asteroid collision

(Newser) - An object captured on film by the Hubble telescope has astronomers scratching their heads. The body, named P/2010 A2 after it was discovered in early January, shares comet-like traits, but the head is x-shaped and seems to be disconnected from its tail, reports the New York Daily News .

Universal Turning Atari's '70s Asteroids Game Into Movie

Crudely drawn '70s arcade classic to become full-length film

(Newser) - Universal Studios has shot down three rivals to win the movie rights to the classic '70s Atari game Asteroids, reports the Hollywood Reporter. Matt Lopez, writer of Disney's Bedtime Stories, has been tasked with turning the game's story of a spaceship firing at crudely drawn rocks and the occasional flying...

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