The asteroid captured by NASA. | NASA - The Mundo.es

NASA has announced what he called his ‘Grand Challenge’ of asteroids. This is a program to detect those rocks that may be a threat to Earth and decide what to do to address this threat.

This challenge, which was announced at a convention of the U.S. space agency in Washington, is a large-scale effort to use multidisciplinary collaborations and a variety of partnerships with other government agencies, international partners , industry, research centers and scientists, as indicated by NASA.

“We are working to find asteroids that could pose a threat to the planet ” stated the head of the agency Lori Garver, who stated that “the ‘Grand Challenge’, is focuses on the detection and characterization of asteroids and learn to deal with potential threats. “

experts have indicated that this plan is a complement to the mission that NASA recently announced to redirect an asteroid and send humans to study. “They are an important element of President Obama’s strategy for American innovation,” said Garver, to remember that in these rocks could have a lot of data to the arrival of life on the planet.

White House representative at the convention, the deputy director of Technology and Innovation, Tom Kalil, said that “applauds” NASA for the launch of the ‘Grand Challenge’. Similarly, stressed that “the efforts of private sector partners and public science reinforce the work that NASA is doing to improve the detection of near-Earth objects.”