Whose job is it to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth? Not to
be overly alarmist, but Earth has had two near-misses with large
asteroids so far this month. On Wednesday, a hunk of space rock
three miles in diameter and going by the designation 4179
Toutatis passed by the planet, missing by 4.3 million miles, or
about 18 times the distance from the Earth to the moon. … The
United Nations Scientific and Technical Subcommittee has a
special working group on NEOs advised by a special coalition of
experts (called Action Team 14), ranging from space agencies to
advocacy groups. Together, they are working to formalize an U.N.
framework for coordinating an international response to
potentially dangerous NEOs. Their recommendations, which will be
presented in February, are expected to include proposals to
establish two institutions. The first is an international
asteroid warning network to coordinate the search for NEOs,
determine which ones are threats, and what their characteristics
are (what they’re made of, how f