US team wins asteroid competition (BBC) {Earth-grazer or Earth-killer?}

[eppur_se_muova]

A US team has won a $50,000 (£25,000) competition to design a spacecraft to rendezvous with and track the path of an asteroid which may threaten Earth.

The winning entry, led by SpaceWorks Engineering, will shadow asteroid Apophis for 300 days.

The measurements it takes will be used to refine what is known about the orbit of this 300m-wide space rock.

Apophis will make a close pass of Earth in 2029 and there is a small but real possibility it could hit in 2036.

The idea behind the project is to "tag" Apophis and thereby plot its orbit accurately enough to determine whether it will strike our planet.
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more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7265608.stm

EDIT: Sexy up the headline

[caraher]

1. Now we find out whether our brains are worth anything...

Deflecting this rock requires exactly the kind of long-term planning that will determine how soon we go extinct. It looks do-able but by no means trivial, but requires timely intervention.