NASA says the community can show humans are "smarter than the dinosaurs" by serving them situating asteroids that have the possible to end the person pursuit.
The dinosaurs were extremely killed off by an asteroid bang about 66 million years ago, and humans could one day appearance a comparable danger.
"NASA previously is functioning to discover asteroids that capacity is a menace to our planet, and while we have established 95 percent of the large asteroids near the Earth's orbit, we want to find all those that might be a threat to Earth," says deputy administrator Lori Garver.
"This grand challenge is paying attention on detecting and characterizing asteroids and learning how to deal with possible coercion. We will also connect public rendezvous, open modernism and citizen science to help solve this global problem."
The mission has backing from the White House, which says the hunt for killer asteroids requires an "all-hands-on-deck effort".
"The efforts of private-sector partners and our citizen scientists will augment the work NASA already is doing to improve near-Earth object detection capabilities," says Tom Kalil, deputy director for technology and innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
NASA estimates it has only found a quarter of near-Earth asteroids larger than 100m in diameter. Those larger than about 140m could destroy an entire city, if they hit at the right angle and speed. An asteroid that exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk earlier this year, injuring hundreds, was only about 15m across.
"This is really a call to action to find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them;" says Ms Garver, adding that a successful deflection would prove "we're smarter than the dinosaurs".
NASA is also looking for ideas and in sequence on how it can achieve its other asteroid-related goal capturing one and bringing it into orbit around the moon.
The dinosaurs were extremely killed off by an asteroid bang about 66 million years ago, and humans could one day appearance a comparable danger.
"NASA previously is functioning to discover asteroids that capacity is a menace to our planet, and while we have established 95 percent of the large asteroids near the Earth's orbit, we want to find all those that might be a threat to Earth," says deputy administrator Lori Garver.
"This grand challenge is paying attention on detecting and characterizing asteroids and learning how to deal with possible coercion. We will also connect public rendezvous, open modernism and citizen science to help solve this global problem."
The mission has backing from the White House, which says the hunt for killer asteroids requires an "all-hands-on-deck effort".
"The efforts of private-sector partners and our citizen scientists will augment the work NASA already is doing to improve near-Earth object detection capabilities," says Tom Kalil, deputy director for technology and innovation at the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy
NASA estimates it has only found a quarter of near-Earth asteroids larger than 100m in diameter. Those larger than about 140m could destroy an entire city, if they hit at the right angle and speed. An asteroid that exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk earlier this year, injuring hundreds, was only about 15m across.
"This is really a call to action to find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them;" says Ms Garver, adding that a successful deflection would prove "we're smarter than the dinosaurs".
NASA is also looking for ideas and in sequence on how it can achieve its other asteroid-related goal capturing one and bringing it into orbit around the moon.
For more information related to dinosaurs, visit rareresource.com.
