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A meteor burns up as it nears Earth, unlike asteroids that can hit the surface and wreak havoc
James Blake/Falklands Maritime Heritage Trust
How to Kill an Asteroid
Robin George Andrews (W.W.Norton)
FOR a generation of scientists – and science fiction fans – Hollywood movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact have helped shape and scare society. The risk of an asteroid wreaking havoc on our planet, wiping out large swathes of Earth and the humans on it, are real.
But as science journalist Robin George Andrews writes in How to Kill an Asteroid: The real science of planetary defence, the danger…