National Post

Thousands of nearby asteroids are big enough to harm Earth: NASA
About 1,000 asteroids big enough to cause catastrophic damage if they hit Earth are orbiting relatively nearby, a NASA survey shows.

In a project known as Spaceguard, the U.S. space agency was ordered by Congress in 1998 to find 90% of objects near Earth that are 1 km in diameter or larger.

The survey is now complete, with 93 percent of the objects accounted for, astronomer Amy Mainzer of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, said at the American Geophysical Union conference in San Francisco on Tuesday.