That's not poor television reception you are looking at. It is a small piece of the cosmos and the bit circled in red is asteriod 2004 AS1.

On January 13th asteriod 2004 AS1 looked like it was going to collide with the northern hemisphere of the earth within 36 hours. 2004 AS1 is a pretty pissy little asteroid really when you stack it up against the one that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs but it would still have made the 9/11 attack on the twin towers look like an amateur effort.

The astronomers came within a hairs breath of doing what they have been dying to do ever since they had a social night out at the movies and saw Deep Impact, ring the President.

It raises the question of "What is the point?" Let's put aside the fact that when the twin towers event happened GWBs assessment of the situation was such that he didn't find it necessary to interupt a meeting at a primary school where he was listening th children read aloud. What was he actually going to do?

Adjourn to some bunker to save himself, well probably, wouldn't you in the same circumstance.

Make an announcement to the world! Since no accurate location for the impact was possible, that would be guaranteed to acheive nothing except panic and looting in the more densely populated cities.

The Green Man wonders whether, in circumstances such as this, it is better for the astronomers to just shut up and let nature take its course, which it will do anyway.

You can read about the hand wringing that went on about whether to ring the President at BBC News.