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The extra money could pay for new telescopes, and to make more observations with current telescopes.
"Accounts of asteroids passing close to Earth with almost no prior warning should be enough to get our attention," said Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, who introduced the bill. "The potential catastrophe of an asteroid hitting Earth should no longer be ignored. We need to know what is out there."
"There's a whole class of orbits that are only observable for a year or two every couple of decades," said Gareth Williams of the Minor Planet Center, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. "It's entirely possible that if an object is going to hit us, it's going to come at us from the Sun, and we won't have seen it before."
At present, most telescopes do not look within 90 degrees of the Sun, but this could be extended to around 60 degrees. "By increasing the amount of sky we can cover, we can detect more of these objects," said Williams.
More info: Minor Planet Center
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