Huffpost Science
NASA has set up a “rapid response system” to pick the best candidates for its ambitious asteroid-capture mission.
The space agency aims to use a robotic spacecraft to haul a near-Earth asteroid into a stable lunar orbit, where astronauts would visit it in the future. It’s not as easy as just picking a space rock and going, however. Many asteroids are too big to be moved easily or are in unstable orbits. Others are too distant for telescopes to figure out what they’re made of, which could make them unsuitable candidates.
