It's a Bird! It's a Plane! Er... It's an Asteroid?

Tracking the Sky for near-earth objects is a difficult task indeed. The resources required to scan, decipher and predict stellar activity that may result in catastrophic effects are more than you might imagine. At this point, the closest object that we know of that could take us out Armageddon style is Apophis. Its actual trajectory is unknown but it is possible that Apophis will collide with our planet in 2036, destroying most of us humans and making a general mess of things.

That would totally suck! What can we do? Well, that's exactly what the Planetary Society has decided to throw a competition for.

The prize is $50,000 for the winning idea. Not a bad pay day if you have a good imagination with a good science background.