It's not a Hollywood concoction, it's better. On your big screen Thursday night, courtesy of NASA, streaming video of an asteroid coming within 31-thousand miles of planet Earth.
That is far enough that it won't be a threat to said planet, but the asteroid will be close enough for an observatory in Hawaii to offer live-streaming of the fly-by. All of us watchers will get the thrill of it...and more-so, maybe, with the news that NASA will test its planetary defense systems. We won't see that, but its reassuring to know the space agency does have some protocols to test, should at asteroid one day be on a collision course with Earth.
7 pm Houston time for the show. We link you.