Vesta asteroid

NASA is partnering with the billionaire-backed company Planetary Resources Inc., to launch asteroid-hunting competitions, and they want your help.

Then U.S. space agency and the asteroid-mining firm are seeking to crowdsource new ideas for software to find space rocks that could pose a threat to our planet — or at least be of interest to scientists and cosmic mineral prospectors.

These images depict views of the massive asteroid Vesta - how it is more like a planet than an asteroid, scientists said Dec. 5, 2011.

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