Do You Have Some Free TIme to Search for Asteroids?

If you want to do something fun one evening, and maybe save the planet while you are at it, check out the new app Asteroid Data Hunter.  Brought to you by NASA and Planetary Resources, all you need to help is your own telescope.  Here is what it is about:

Protecting the Earth from the threat of asteroid impacts means first knowing where they are. NASA is harnessing the incredible potential of innovators, makers and citizen scientists by opening up the search. In an increasingly connected world, NASA recognizes the value of the public as a partner in addressing some of the country’s most pressing challenges. We need your help in identifying asteroids – and to help further this effort, we’ve built an application that enables everyone, everywhere, to help solve this global challenge.

My only question is whether Planetary Resources will share some of its mining wealth with those who detect the most profitable asteroid.  I think I already know the answer to that one. 

Another Asteroid Heading Our Way

As if last month's asteroid near miss and Russian meteorite was not enough to get the world's attention, we have more asteroids heading our way.  Tomorrow a 330-foot-wide asteroid called 2013 ET will make a near approach to the Earth, missing us by about 600,000 miles (or about 2.5 times the distance from the Earth to the moon).  According to news reports, this large asteroid was first detected on March 3rd, not giving us much time to worry had its trajectory been somewhat different. 

Remember, 2013 ET is twice the size of last month's 2012 DA14, of which NASA stated:

...if another asteroid of a size similar to that of 2012 DA14 (about 150 feet across) were to impact Earth, it would release approximately 2.5 megatons of energy in the atmosphere and would be expected to cause regional devastation. 

Are we facing more risks as time goes by, or are we simply more aware of a scary situation that has always been out there?  I would like to think it is the latter. 

NASA News: NEOWISE Spots Hazards & Mining Possibilities

A recent NASA story notes that the NEOWISE project, an unplanned extension of the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), has found more potentially hazardous asteroids than initially estimated by scientists (also called PHAs by those government types who can find a acronym for anything - AFA).  These PHAs can most likely make it through our atmosphere and do some serious damage below.  NASA findings indicate there are about 4,700 PHAs with diameters larger than 330 feet.  And where did they come from?  Most likely collisions in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

This could be good news for those who plan to mine the asteroids, such as Planetary Resources.  The company has a simple mission:

Planetary Resources’ mission is clear: apply commercial, innovative techniques to explore space. We will develop low-cost robotic spacecraft to explore the thousands of resource-rich asteroids within our reach. We will learn everything we can about them, then develop the most efficient capabilities to deliver these resources directly to both space-based and terrestrial customers. Asteroid mining may sound like fiction, but it’s just science.

Whether or not we need to go so far for such resources is another question.  Of course, this is something the private sector can decide.  As Slate noted: 

This space-mining venture is either going to be a spectacular success or a spectacular failure. Either way, the emphasis will be on spectacular. And the best part of all is that U.S. taxpayers won’t bear the risk if these extraordinary plans fail to pan out.