Russia vs. Asteroid

Stop if you've heard this movie before: Faced with an incoming asteroid with the potential to wreak untold destruction if it reaches Earth, a team of astronauts devise a plan to knock the object off course and avert disaster. Russia has apparently decided to dust off the old script by concocting a plan to coordinate with American, European, and Chinese space agencies to knock out an 885-foot wide asteroid, Adolphis, that is expected to pass by Earth. While the asteroid was initially thought to stand a significant chance of striking Earth in 2029, further studies have shown the odds to be extremely low. Nonetheless, the head of Russia's space agency, Anatoly Perminov, has suggested the object could still pose a threat. "People's lives are at stake. We should pay several hundred million dollars and build a system that would allow [us] to prevent a collision, rather than sit and wait for it to happen and kill hundreds of thousands of people," he told London's Telegraph.