Forget Hollywood, science has real plans to defend us from asteroids

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 AsteroidRobin 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…