On Sunday night, a large space rock came very close to Earth. Thanks to new program in NASA called Scout, it can track the projected path of objects flying through space to detect potentially dangerous ones. It tells telescopes what to do, scans data from them and orders follow-ups. This program is technologically advanced, and is very helpful, going far beyond the technical capabilities of an average telescope, greatly speeding up the detection process. Scout is still in the testing phase, but should become fully operational later this year. It's dealing with smallish, nearby objects currently.
This is a really interesting and fascinating technological advancement that I think will benefit us as a human race greatly. It's still very sad, because of how rapidly NASA is losing priority and funding quickly. I think this program greatly points to the importance behind space exploration and the science behind it, and how it can be used to directly benefit us on Earth, and hopefully NASA will gain some priority on funding. This can be synthesized to space shuttle program first launched by NASA in 1981.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/30/499751470/nasas-new-intruder-alert-system-spots-an-incoming-asteroid
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