you and me won’t be about (i presume) but there’s an asteroid with a one in 300 chance of colliding with the earth on 16 march 2880. what’s interesting is that there are some ideas about how to deflect it that don’t involve sending bruce willis up to deal with it, which is good because even he is unlikely to be around by then.

it seems that we can change the orbit of the asteroid ever so slightly by changing the amount of heat radiated from it and so it

could be redirected by spreading chalk or charcoal across the surface, or by sending a solar sail spacecraft that collapses around the asteroid and sort of shrink-wraps it. that process isn’t action packed enough for hollywood no doubt.