3. Right Out of Sci-Fi

Well, I feel cheated. NASA, it turns out, catalogs the asteroids in the asteroid belt but doesn’t actually take them into account when sending probes to explore that region. They are so far spaced out that there is really no danger of crashing into them.

The sort of dangerous, closely packed-together asteroids that are as difficult to navigate as a minefield are a creation of science fiction, unfortunately. Makes for good drama, I suppose, but it is good to know for future space navigation.