Observatories around the world send their findings to the NASA-
funded Minor Planet Center, which keeps a database of all known
asteroids and comets in our solar system. NASA also has a space
probe tracking asteroids to learn more about them. The Dawn
probe was launched in 2007 and has already sent back dramatic
pictures from the giant asteroid Vesta. The spacecraft is now
heading to the dwarf planet Ceres. Vesta and Ceres are the two
most massive objects in the main asteroid belt. Although
scientists know a lot about the path of 2012 DA14, there are
many undiscovered near-Earth objects still out there. It's
possible that a flash of light and shaking of the ground would
be the first indications that something happened. With the
Russian meteor, for example, there was no warning. Many teams of
astronomers are using electronic cameras to find these near-
Earth objects, but according to NASA, the entire effort consists
of fewer than 100 people. New asteroid adventure in 2016 A
mission that's scheduled to launch in