NASA has secured funding for a new mission that will hunt for Near Earth Objects (NEOs), or asteroids, that could pose a danger to our planet.
In total $35.6million (£27.22million) has been provided for the new project, called the Near Earth Object Surveillance Mission. The plan is to launch a new space satellite, complete with infrared camera, that will hunt for asteroids in the vicinity of Earth.

On December 20 President Trump signed the ‘minibus’ spending law which provides an additional $22.6billion (£17.3billion) for NASA.

Of this $2.7billion (£2.1billion) will go to NASA’s planetary science funding line, that will be used to fund the new project.

Congress has ordered NASA to identify all NEOs which are at least 140 meters in diameter, judged to be the point they would have a regional or global impact if they collide with the Earth.

The Near Earth Object Surveillance Mission will be run from the University of Arizona under the leadership of Amy Mainzer.

The new NASA system will search for potentially dangerous asteroids (Image: NASA )

Congress has ordered NASA to identify all NEOs which are at least 140 meters in diameter (Image: GETTY)

In a statement released on the University of Arizona website Ms Mainzer explained the new project’s purpose.

She said: “This mission would answer a fundamental question: Are there asteroids or comets out there that can cause harm to the Earth over the next century?”

Earlier this year a top scientist warned its inevitable a large asteroid will smash into Earth, potentially with devastating consequences, unless leaders take action.

Greg Leonard, a senior researcher at the NASA financed Catalina Sky Survey (CSS), put the probability at “one hundred percent” unless changes are made.

A giant asteroid strike is believed to have been responsible for the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction (Image: GETTY)

He was speaking to science writer Bryan Walsh for his new book, ‘End Times: A Brief Guide to the End of the World’.

Mr Leonard is also a professor at New Zealand’s University of Otago, where he forms part of the school of surveying.



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