NASA Office to Coordinate Asteroid Detection

[Waspie_Dwarf]

NASA Office to Coordinate Asteroid Detection, Hazard Mitigation

NASA has formalized its ongoing program for detecting and tracking near-Earth objects (NEOs) as the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO). The office remains within NASA’s Planetary Science Division, in the agency’s Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The office will be responsible for supervision of all NASA-funded projects to find and characterize asteroids and comets that pass near Earth’s orbit around the sun. It will also take a leading role in coordinating interagency and intergovernmental efforts in response to any potential impact threats.

More than 13,500 near-Earth objects of all sizes have been discovered to date—more than 95 percent of them since NASA-funded surveys began in 1998. About 1,500 NEOs are now detected each year.

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[MJNYC]

Hmmmmmmmm

[psyche101]

Russia was a big enough scare, great news.

[Dark_Grey]

Hopefully they can get a plan in place relatively soon. But I'm glad to know they take it seriously around the globe!

[Thorvir]

Shouldn't this have been one of the first things they took care of?

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Shouldn't this have been one of the first things they took care of?

Well given that we have only just developed the technology to detect the vast majoring of these objects and are still in the process of developing the technology to do anything about it NOW would seem to be the appropriate time to start taking care of this.

NASA consists of scientists and engineers, not magicians

[Thorvir]

Well given that we have only just developed the technology to detect the vast majoring of these objects and are still in the process of developing the technology to do anything about it NOW would seem to be the appropriate time to start taking care of this.

NASA consists of scientists and engineers, not magicians

Didn't say they were.

[BeastieRunner]

I miss Star Wars.

[Thorvir]

I miss Star Wars.

Get out and see it again, then!