Then U.S. space agency and the asteroid-mining firm are seeking to crowdsource new ideas for software to find space rocks that could pose a threat to our planet — or at least be of interest to scientists and cosmic mineral prospectors.

 

The venture is the first to come out of NASA's Asteroid Grand Challenge, which launched in June. The initiative seeks to detect dangerous asteroids and devise strategies to stop them from colliding with Earth as well as identify asteroids that might be interesting candidates for scientific exploration. [See Photos of Potentially Dangerous Asteroids]