“Those Asteroids that hit this morning – those were nothing – the size of basketballs and Volkswagens. This new one we’re tracking is the size of Texas, Mr. President. It’s what we call a Global Killer… the end of mankind. Half the world will be incinerated by the heat blast… the rest will freeze to death in a nuclear winter…” This quote from the 1998 disaster movie Armageddon perfectly matched the simulation that was played as an exercise at the IAU Planetary Defense Conference in Italy a few weeks ago. Continue reading