Its a sobering thought that this was NOT detected untill it struck, nothing man made can hit it and that it can happen anytime and anywhere.
We may have been kept out of the loop so no panic scenarios would occur and then again I must suspect we do have either railgun or lasers that could hit it.
Think again. There ain’t a damned thing we can do. We are at the mercy of the Lord , and when times up, it’s up. Fire and brimstone for everyone
Unless someone dreams up some stratospheric application of aerogel (which will still admit water vapor and sunlight) to trap the pesky things.
Objects as small as this one come up a few miles short during terminal descent, so they’re not being actively looked for, although they are occasionally collaterally found. The asteroid which missed on the same day was about three times the diameter, which is approximately 3 times in each dimension, or 27 times the size (and probably the mass). Something about that size produced the 3/4 mile wide Barringer Crater in Arizona circa 50K years ago.
re deflection:
Astronomy Picture of the Day — Gravitational Tractor
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2990516/posts