NASA wants backyard astronomers to help track asteroids

Now NASA wants to work with individuals,government agencies,international partners and academia to 8220;find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them.8221;

Between 50 and 100 amateur astronomers are doing what is called light-curve analysis on space rocks,making repeated images of the astronomical bodies to help determine their characteristics,said Jason Kessler,program executive for what NASA calls Astroid Grand Challenge.

8220;We8217;re certainly going to need more help with that as our detection rate goes up,8221; Kessler said by telephone. He acknowledged that what NASA aims to do,at least in part,is to crowd-source asteroid detection.

Even smaller space rocks can be dangerous,whether or not they hit the Earth. In February,a meteorite about 19 yards 17 metres in diameter exploded over central Russia,shattering windows,damaging buildings and injuring 1,200 people.

Earlier this month,an asteroid the size of a small truck zoomed past the Earth four times closer than the moon,crossing within about 65,000 miles 105,000 km over the Southern Ocean south of Tasmania,Australia.

Estimates suggest less than 10 percent of NEOs smaller than 328 yards 300 metres across have been detected,and less than 1 percent of objects smaller than 109 yards 100 metres in diameter have been detected,NASA said in a statement.

The initiative aims to detect all NEOs of 33 yards 30 metres or larger,Kessler said.

The space agency has also announced plans for a mission to capture a small asteroid,redirect it into a stable orbit and send humans to study it as early as 2021.

U.S. lawmakers have also become interested in NEO. In March the House of Representatives8217; science committee held a hearing on 8220;Threats from Space8221; that reviewed efforts to track and mitigate asteroids and meteors.