NASA has no idea when an asteroid will hit earth in future, but if it happens, the space agency of the United States knows how to save earthlings. The agency on Thursday announced its new asteroid detection program, Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), to classify Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) that may threaten earth in future.

The PDCO is an organization that will work with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and some other government agencies to improve efforts of planetary defense. The new program shows that NASA is serious to detect natural impact hazards, said Lindley Johnson, Planetary Defense Officer and NEO Observations program executive.

According to NASA, if the organization notices any potential impacts, it will inform the space agency so that catastrophic asteroids could be avoided. The PDCO officers will work with a list of US government agencies, FEMA and the country’s Department of Defense. It will also participate in planning to avoid threat, NASA added.

It is not sure when an asteroid may hit earth, but University of Colorado geoscientist Brian Toon said if it happens, it would be catastrophic. “An asteroid half a mile in diameter can do a lot of damage and cause widespread earthquakes with an energy equal to 100 billion tons of TNT”, Toon explained.

There are many previous scientific theories which showed that an asteroid, 7 to 8 miles wide, hit earth many years ago and wiped out many dinosaur species. A planetary sciences professor Richard Binzel said people should not be worried and currently, there is no asteroid or any other space body orbiting in the universe that could harm earth and its people.

Earlier, an asteroid zoomed past earth on Halloween, but it was far enough to pass safely without posing any harm to our home planet.