This is sort of off topic but I was reading about the makeup of asteroids today in the paper, and was surprised to hear they can be very varied in their composition and can be a lot bigger that I had thought! Some are rock, some are ice particles and others can be a conglomeration of rubble, which I did not know as I thought they were all composed of rock (unlike comets ). The article discussed ways of diverting asteroids that were expected to pass too close or collide with earth, and concluded that it is a lot more tricky than earlier thought because of their variable composition. This post seems to challenge the paper's suggested best method of diverting rocky asteroids, ie the use of small explosives to change the path of the asteroid to pass close by, but avoiding collision with earth. If it already has it's own 'drive' would that not complicate things? Is it possible to divert a determined asteroid anyway?
The last sentence of the article suggested that, although passes near earth do occur, at the moment Climate Change seemed to have a more immediate chance of causing catastrophe!
One day I'll learn how to post links to articles like this!
