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(Continued from page 28)
• Astronomers organized asteroid-encounter parties for Friday and experts just about everywhere were giving flyby rundowns.
• NASA's deep-space antenna in California's Mojave Desert was ready to collect radar images, but not until eight hours after the closest approach given the United States' poor positioning for the big event.
• Scientists at NASA's Near-Earth Object program at California's Jet Propulsion Laboratory estimate that an object of this size makes a close approach like this every 40 years. The likelihood of a strike is every 1,200 years.
• If a killer asteroid was, indeed, incoming, a spacecraft could be launched to nudge the asteroid out of Earth's way, changing its speed and the point of intersection. A second spacecraft would make a slight alteration in the path of the asteroid and ensure it never intersects with the planet again, Schweickart said.
• Of course, this is all in theory.
• Forget an asteroid blowup like the one depicted in the 1998 film "Armageddon." The last thing Earth needs is asteroid fragments raining down.
• "Thanks, Hollywood," Schweickart said with a laugh.
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10 Things to Know for Today
The Associated Press
• Your daily look at late-breaking news, upcoming events and the stories that will be talked about today:
• 1. WHAT PASSENGERS ARE DOING AFTER BELATED "TRIUMPH"
• After five numbing days at sea aboard the disabled Carnival cruise ship, passengers are checking into hotels for a hot shower, fresh-cooked food and sleep or boarding buses for a long haul home.
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• 2. "BLADE RUNNER" CHARGED, WEEPS IN COURT
• Prosecutors to pursue premeditated murder charge against Paralympic superstar Oscar Pistorius, accused of killing his model girlfriend in South Africa.
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• 3. WHAT FLASHED THROUGH RUSSIAN SKIES
• A meteor estimated at 10 tons streaks across the sky above the Ural Mountains, causing explosions and reportedly injuring hundreds of people, most by broken glass.
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• 4. DORNER PROBE REACHES NEXT PHASE
• As investigators examine the burned human remains found after a shootout at a (Continued on page 30)
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