European center to coordinate hunt for asteroids near Earth

PARIS, May 22 (UPI) -- The European Space Agency says a new research hub will strengthen Europe's contribution to the global hunt for asteroids that may strike Earth.

Located at the European Space Research Institute near Rome, the center will take part in the search for Near-Earth Objects, or NEOs, asteroids or comets that orbit the sun and whose orbits come close to that of Earth.

The NEO Coordination Center will serve as the central access point to a network of European NEO data sources and information providers being established under ESA's Space Situational Awareness, a release from the agency's Paris headquarters said Wednesday.

Of the 600,000 asteroids known in our Solar System almost 10,000 are NEOs, ESA scientists said.

Dramatic proof of the risks represented by NEA's came Feb. 15, when an object exploded high above Chelyabinsk, Russia, with 20 to 30 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb.

The resulting shock wave caused widespread damage and injuries, making it the largest known natural object to have entered the atmosphere since the 1908 Tunguska event in Siberia, the scientists said.