An asteroid came within 70,000 miles of earth last week–the closest known approach in several years. That’s just a few earth radii away.

It was big enough to destroy a major city. As Jay Manifold has pointed out, if it hit a major city on the Indian subcontinent (or anywhere in the region), it might have touched off a nuclear war, given the hair-trigger situation over there.

We really need to get more serious about these things.