When an object smacked into Jupiter over the weekend, giving astronomers their best cosmic-collision show since the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 in 1994, the giant gas ball of a planet took the poke like the Pillsbury Dough Boy.
For all its scientific interest, however, the collision also serves as a stark reminder that the solar system remains a shooting gallery – with Earth, as well as Jupiter, on the wrong side of the firing line.
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A brief treatment of the dangers posted by near-earth asteroids and comets. Veers towards a scare piece with the typical "how to save the planet" scenarios (including using nuclear weapons. I would have appreciated a deeper treatment exploring how vastly underpowered current observation networks are, the actual likelihood of an impact, and the current efforts to track and catalog these objects.
These objects do pose a threat to earth and enhanced monitoring networks will help to avoid a future disaster. Not really something that most people lend credibility to, the public doesn't really realize how dangerous and numerous near-earth asteroids are.
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