NASA this week disclosed that a space rock several metres in size exploded 16 miles above the Bering Sea with 10 times the energy of the Hiroshima atomic bomb, in December.
The scientists and politicians want space agencies such as NASA and the ESA to intensify efforts to detect and track NEOs and devise ways to deflect them.
Jay Tate, a leading Asgardia scientist and director of the privately-funded Space-guard Centre in Wales, said: “NEOs pose a serious, even cataclysmic, threat to human civilisation and action must be taken now to identify levels of risk and develop the technology to protect this and future generations.”
Solar storms and flares can knock out electrical grids, telecommunications, pipelines and control systems, posing a threat to billions, he added.
NASA has identified more than 19,000 asteroids in orbits around the Sun that come perilously close to Earth’s.
The alarm will be raised at the first meeting of the government of Asgardia, a “space nation” with 20,000 citizens and a million followers worldwide.