B612 Foundation applauds NASA’s recent announcement of the formation of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office.

NASA’s new planetary defense coordination office has a critical role not only in coordination but importantly in funding projects for asteroid detection and deflection.

There are an estimated one million asteroids large enough to destroy a major city, yet thus far we have only tracked about 1 percent of these asteroids. Over the next decade, new telescopes like the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope will be operational and, in tandem with proposed space-based telescopes, can greatly improve our early detection capability for impacting asteroids.

With this flood of new asteroid discoveries will come a responsibility to ensure that governments and the public are kept informed of any threats, and that we have technical options for diverting an asteroid should it be necessary.

We look forward to working with NASA over the coming years on our shared mission of Planetary Defense from asteroids.