8 Movie Plots That Could Have Been Resolved By Science In Minutes

5. Deflect Not Destroy - Armageddon

So, an asteroid the size of Texas unexpectedly pokes its head out from behind the moon or whatever, and we're supposed to believe that, in humanity's entire history of looking up, we'd completely miss something that big and that close.

This thing is the size of Texas. Do you know what else is the size of Texas? Ceres, and we've known about that one since the year 1801, so the excuse that the current budget only allows us to track "3% of the sky" is, frankly, piss-weak.

While we're on the subject, although NASA might only be able to drum up enough cash to peer at a tiny patch of sky, there are thousands of amateur astronomers, not to mention other official asteroid survey projects, out there. They say in the movie that there are only 15 telescopes in the world that could see it, but given the size and proximity of the asteroid, you'd be able to spot it with the naked eye at up to two months before impact, let alone with a cheap telescope from Target.

As the movies scientists didn't quite manage the "just look up, dumbass" resolution to this plot, the deflection strategy could probably use some work.

The nuke, which will supposedly split the asteroid in two, would never work. They could, however, stick it on one side of the giant space rock and knock it off course.