U.S. Navy Targets Spy Satellite Fuel Tank

"U.S. missile strikes spy satellite"
International Herald Tribune (February 21, 2008)

"Navy Hits Satellite With Heat-Seeking Missile "
Space.com (February 20, 2008)

It was pretty good shooting: The satellite (USA-193, AKA NROL-21) was about the size of a bus; the Navy was aiming at, and apparently hit, a fuel tank on the satellite.

Now, the biggest pieces of the satellite are about the size of a football.

The fuel tank was a real concern. It was made of titanium and had about a thousand pounds of hydrazine¹ inside. Hydrazine is a rocket fuel that's sincerely unhealthy to breath.

CNN has a pretty good video of the satellite being hit. That video includes part of a press conference with General James Cartwright of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: also clips from "Armageddon" and "Deep Impact," and some mildly-tongue-in-cheek interviews with New Yorkers.

The Space.com article includes a claim by an "MIT physicist and space expert" that there's a 3.5% chance that the tank will hit someone². Numbers with a decimal point are always impressive, but that's a crazy-high chance: and the Space.com article doesn't go into why the MIT expert decided to use that number.

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¹That's hydrazine, not hydrogen, as I heard an expert say. In fairness, he might not have had enough sleep the night before.
²Even when you take into account America's 'obesity epidemic.' :)