Crew members would be able to gather scientific information by drilling into the asteroid -- sort of like Bruce Willis in "Armageddon," except without the fate of humanity hanging in the balance.
Images from the Hayabusa spacecraft show that shaking and convection on the asteroid Itokawa has sorted the loose material on its surface, distributing finer grains to lower areas.
Plots of these films follow one of three paths: The Earth is confronted either by murderous aliens, out-of-control meteors, comets and asteroids, or some sort of natural disaster caused by human meddling.
"It's like sometimes being in a sort of asteroid shower.
"Of course, that will depend on what sort of asteroid it is - its physical characteristics.
Planetary scientists weren't sure what sort of asteroid they were looking at when the European Space Agency's Rosetta spacecraft flew close by Lutetia on 10 July 2010.
Stephen Hawking, one of the world's most venerated scientific minds, has said abandoning terra firma is inevitable since a nuclear war or some sort of asteroid collision could at some point wipe Earth off the chart as a viable place to live.
Will we again be hit by the sort of asteroid that ended the dinosaurs?
