A lot of Hollywood movies have been devoted to asteroids that are heading towards earth and how the heroes have to travel into space and deflect or change their path.  That is not going to be Hollywood fiction for much longer, because the United Nations is expected to adopt two of the recommendations of one of its committees.  

The first recommendation is to establish an International Asteroid Warning Network and the second one is to get the world’s space agencies to set up an advisory group to give advice on how to deflect asteroids!  Apparently, 95% of the asteroids near to earth that are a kilometre in size have been identified, and they are mostly safe, but scientists say that it is likely that earth will be hit by an asteroid at least once every decade.  The scientist say that a one kilometre asteroid is the end of human civilisation, but it is not the only one to watch out for, because one that is a little bit over 100 metres wide would, according to them, probably kill 50 million people and destroy the world economy for a century or two!  It is at least good to know that they are busy working on this and looking into it, but it is one of those topics that I wish would remain just a figment of the imagination of a Hollywood director!