German scientists plan satellite to hunt space rocks

The German space agency DLR said modelling showed there must be more than 1,000 such objects more than 100 metres wide, but only nine have been discovered so far.

It spoke as the centenary approaches of the June 30, 1908 Tunguska Event.

The DLR said its interpretation of that event was that a rock 30 to 50 metres wide entered the atmosphere over Siberia and exploded 8 to 12 kilometres above the surface, destroying 2,000 square kilometres of forest.

"It's vital to identify NEOs before they get onto a collision course with the Earth," Ekkehard Kohrt of the DLR planetary research institute told DPA.

Development work on the ...