Paintballs proposed as defense against ASTEROID ATTACK Just in
time to to deflect Apophis, destroyer of worlds An MIT graduate
student has devised a plan to save the world from destruction by
an inbound asteroid using a novel weapon: interplanetary
paintballs. Sung Wook Paek of the Cambridge, Massachsetts,
brainiac academy's Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics –
affectionately known as AeroAstro – entered his asteroid-
deflecting proposal in the Move An Asteroid 2012 Competition
sponsored by the United Nations Space Generation Advisory
Council (SGAC). He won. Paek's plan eschews the asteroid-killing
nuclear explosives of Armageddon, Deep Impact, The Day the Sky
Exploded, and Meteor, or even the frickin' lasers of Asteroid,
and relies instead on a more prosaic means to nudge an asteroid
off course: paint. The boffin-in-training envisions maneuvering
a spacecraft close to the incoming earth destroyer, then firing
off two volleys of paint pellets, the first to cover one half of
the asteroid in a light-colo