Asteroid early warning system taking shape at UN Members of the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) were due to agree on a series of recommendations for an International Asteroid Warning Network on Friday, following two weeks of negotiations. The proposals will set out how countries can pool resources to track "near-Earth objects" such as asteroids and generate the earliest possible warning of potential collisions. No object larger than a kilometre is expected to threaten Earth for several hundred years, meaning a global catastrophe is currently off the cards, but there are many thousands of smaller NEOs, such as Asteroid 2012 DA14 which whistled narrowly past Earth last week, which have the potential to flatten entire cities. Although DA14 had been spotted a year before its arrival, the unexpected arrival of a meteor over Russia on the same day highlighted the risk posed by the vast proportion of smaller NEOs which remain unidentified and could arrive with little or no notice. The meteor, which injured 1,500 people when it exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, is understood to have "helped focus minds" in London, Paris, Moscow and Washington on the negotiations last week by highlighting the threat posed by NEOs. Sergio Camacho, Chairman of the UN's Action Team on Near-Earth Objects, said earlier this week that if the proposed measures had been in place before the arrival of the meteor, "it would have allowed for more observation and better understanding and education of the population on what to expect rather than having a surprise effect with people not knowing what was happening." Any recommendations formalised by the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space will be formally approved during a UNOOSA session in June, and later submitted to the UN General Assembly. Experts hope that after agreeing on a program to monitor NEOs such as asteroids, the UN can also come up with a contingency plan to minimise damage in the case of an unavoidable impact on Earth. This would include technology which could deflect NEOs away from the planet, and emergency protocols for damage limitation should an impact prove unavoidable.