NASA has announced a Grand Challenge focused on finding all the asteroids that could threaten life’s future on Earth – and determining what to do about them. The challenge is a large-scale effort that will use multi-disciplinary collaborations and a variety of partnerships with other government agencies, international partners, industry, academia, and citizen scientists.

One of the primary goals of the NASA Astrobiology Program is to investigate factors that will affect the future of ecosystems on Earth. Asteroid impacts are thought to have played a major role in the history of life on our planet. They delivered molecules to the early Earth that were important for life’s origins. Devastating asteroid impacts have also altered the global climate and played a role in historic mass extinctions. Studying the history of impacts on Earth can help astrobiologists determine how similar events will shape the future of Earth’s habitability.