STRANGE as it may seem, averting Armageddon isn’t the top priority for most
asteroid hunters. They’d be happy just to know where the rock that could wipe
out life on Earth will come from. But an astronomer in Italy thinks he can save
the world—with space-based missiles.
By the end of the decade, astronomers will have located over 90 per cent of
the near-Earth asteroids capable of causing a global catastrophe. Last week,
NASA’s Spaceguard Survey reported that over 100 rocks more than a kilometre
across were discovered in 2001, bringing the total known to 587 of the estimated…
