Chinese propose method for deflecting asteroid Apophis

Chinese scientist Shengping Gong and associates at Tsinghua University in Beijin have proposed an alternative method of deflecting the asteroid Apophis to ensure that it does not strike the earth. They believe that rather than just blowing it up ala the European Space Agency’s Don Quijote project, a better approach would be to use a solar sail, as described in their paper on the preprint server arXiv, to slowly nudge the asteroid off its trajectory just enough to keep it from bothering us here on Earth.