NEOShield is a new international project that will assess the threat posed by Near Earth Objects (NEO) and look at the best possible solutions for dealing with a big asteroid or comet on a collision path with our planet.

If you lie awake at night worrying about some supervillain steering giant asteroids toward your hometown, you really should relax, experts say. It's not going to happen anytime soon. Humanity does indeed have the technical skills to move space rocks around but the odds of any rogue state using asteroids to rain death down on its enemies are minuscule, experts say.

A team of amateur astronomers has discovered a previously unknown asteroid in orbit that brings it near the Earth, highlighting the contributions regular folks can make to planetary defense, scientists announced Wednesday.

Two new studies propose potential spacecraft missions that would collide with asteroids in an attempt to deflect them away from our planet. Such missions, some researchers say, may be among our best hopes to ward off asteroids that may pose a threat to Earth.

For any single human being, there are bigger things to worry about than death by space rock. For the long-term survival of humankind, on the other hand, asteroids pose a real danger.

NASA has a new network of smart cameras to keep a robotic vigil on the roughly 100 tons of meteoroids that slam into Earth every day. Researchers will use it to triangulate the fireballs' paths, and special software will then use the data to compute their orbits.

An early warning system that could give Earth a week's notice or more before a space rock destroyed a city would cost only $1 million per observatory, its leading proponent suggests. Given current technologies, this lead time would not be enough to mount a mission to deflect the incoming object, but it could be enough to evacuate the area under threat.

NASA needs an asteroid-hunting spacecraft to finally get serious about the potential threat of nearby space rocks that could slam into Earth, experts say. Lately, support is building to finally develop such a mission for both safety and scientific reasons. An asteroid hunter might take the form of an infrared imaging telescope placed in a Venus-like orbit around the sun.

A flotilla of solar sail spacecraft could change the course of the asteroid Apophis — which is headed a little too close to Earth for comfort — by shading the space rock from solar radiation, according to a French researcher.

A delicate dance is under way between the U.S. military and scientists to put in place a partnership focused on small asteroids or "bolides" — but there are a number of thorny issues on the table including how to protect the secrecy of U.S. intelligence satellites.