Artist's conception of ESA's Flyeye Telescope, currently being built in Italy. (Image: ESA) A fictitious asteroid is headed our way, and a group of real experts is currently doing their best to deal with the grim situation. The week-long tabletop exercise, now in its third day, aims to find out whether our current technologies, systems, and institutions could handle the crisis if an actual asteroid were to threaten Earth any time soon. During the Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011, fire trucks were desperately needed at the plant. It seemed like a straightforward request, except for one rather alarming development — the roads were blocked on the way into the facility owing to the tremendous damage caused by the tsunami. It was an understandable oversight, but perhaps something that could’ve been foreseen.