AKIPRESS.COM - After a previously undetected, 20-meter-wide asteroid exploded over Russia in February 2013, unleashing the force of 500,000 tons of TNT, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration launched a series of contests around the globe to come up with ways to keep an eye on asteroids that could threaten Earth, SBS reported.

NASA estimates that only 1% of the millions of asteroids hurtling around our solar system have been found.

So, the agency calls the series of contests that make up the Asteroid Grand Challenge “a broad call to action” to defend Earth against any number of asteroids that could be bearing down on us right this instant.

NASA first invited what it calls “citizen scientists” to join the search for killer asteroids in March at the South by Southwest festival in Austin, Texas, during a session titled, “Are We Smarter than the Dinosaurs?”

On Friday, NASA ended the third contest of its competition to create an algorithm to detect hidden asteroids. No fewer than 422 people from 63 countries – from Argentina to Zimbabwe – submitted algorithmic solutions.

In all, NASA plans to award $35,000 this year to people who can figure out how to identify hidden asteroids.