NASA offers $35,000 bounty for a better asteroid-identifying algorithm

Think you can find Earth-threatening asteroids faster than NASA? Then there is a contest designed just for you: the space agency is calling for citizen scientists to find new and improved ways to track down space rocks. And this isn’t just for the good of all mankind, there’s $35,000 in prize money.The “Asteroid Data Hunter” contest starts on March 17 and runs through August. A partnership between NASA and Planetary Resources, Inc., the contest asks participants to create computer algorithms that can identify asteroids that are nearing Earth.