Raising the Alarm (Or What's the Big Deal II): Astronomers almost woke up the President last month to warn him we were going to be hit by an asteroid:

For some astronomers, events reached a crescendo when Steven Chesley, a researcher at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, looked at the available data and sent an e-mail saying the asteroid had a 25% chance of striking the Earth's Northern Hemisphere in a few days.

It was then that astronomers Clark Chapman and David Morrison, chair of the International Astronomical Union's Working Group on Near Earth Objects, contemplated picking up the telephone to the White House.

And just what would the White House have done about it?