Quick reminder: the Arecibo Observatory may save the planet some day.

By the way, since just two days ago an asteroid flew by the Earth that we didn't discover until a few days before it was upon us it might be good to remember that there is an observatory called Arecibo that not only is uniquely powerful for detecting these objects (it told us a few months ago that an object approaching us was not just one asteroid but rather a trinary system), but it might be closed due to a decrease in funding from $10.5 million per year to $4 million. Baffling. An observatory that could one day mean the difference between being hit and not being hit by an asteroid has to fight for survival.

Due to the strength of the report that calls the observatory uniquely powerful there is a fairly good chance that NASA will step in to fund the NEO observation program there, so make sure to keep an eye on that keyword to see what the most recent developments are and feel free to blog or write a post on a forum about it if you feel so inclined.