In the 1998 movie "Armageddon," an asteroid "the size of Texas" threatens to destroy Earth until NASA employs a deep-sea oil driller (played by Bruce Willis) to plant nuclear bombs deep inside the asteroid and blow it apart.
Although the movie seems far-fetched — and parts of it certainly are — the need for an asteroid-defense strategy hasn't escaped either NASA or the European Space Agency (ESA). Both agencies are designing missions to test their ability to nudge an asteroid off-course if it seriously threatens Earth.
The supermassive black hole is 40 million times as massive as the sun and powers a quasar that existed 700 million years after the Big Bang.
The asteroid zoomed by Earth at a perfectly safe distance of around 1.8 million miles (2.9 kilometers).
Images show surprise changes to the spacecraft as it interacted with the atmosphere.
