NASA is looking for asteroids and wants you to join the hunt. But don't expect to be starring in a real-life version of "Armageddon" any time soon.

NASA unveiled some of its plans for the Asteroid Initiative at a news conference today.

While the engineers are working on the exact details of exploring and redirecting asteroids that travel a little too close to the Earth, others sent a call out to amateur scientists everywhere in what they're calling a "Grand Challenge." The challenge's statement was seen in bright red letters throughout their presentation: "Find all asteroid threats to human populations and know what to do about them."

Jason Kessler, the program executive leading the Grand Challenge, said at today's conference that the project isn't in response to any specific asteroid hurtling towards Earth.

"This is a recognition of the world that we now live in," he said. "We are more connected and better educated, and this is an opportunity to take advantage of all those aspects."

Kessler sees the public being involved primarily through two different channels. The first is by getting people more involved in the act of spotting asteroids. He looks to GalaxyZoo, a project where users quickly categorize galaxies based on their shape and lighting, for inspiration.

"We have a large data set already associated with asteroids," he said. "Are there ways that we can creatively bring people in to help with this problem?"

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The other channel Kessler sees may appeal to the more tech-savvy amateur scientists -- a Request for Information document, or RFI. In the document, NASA encourages all types of organizations to submit ideas on what they would like to see the Asteroid Initiative do.

Robert Lightfoot, the associate administrator for NASA, admitted that this is very different direction than what the organization has done in the past.

Read more from the original source:

NASA Challenges You to Fight Asteroids