NASA is asking coders to come forward to help avoid a global catastrophe by identifying asteroids that may destroy earth. The space agency has announced an Asteroid Data Hunter contest that will offer programmers, who can find asteroids captured by ground-based telescopes, handsome award of $35,000.

The contest is intended to increase the detection rates and reduce the number of false findings. The new improved asteroid hunting code also requires ignoring imperfections in the data and must run all computer systems.

Jenn Gustetic, executive of the programme, said the planet can be protected from the threat of asteroid impact only after knowing where they are. "By opening up the search for asteroids, we are harnessing the potential of innovators and makers and citizen scientists everywhere to solve this global challenge", he added.

Only 1% of the estimated objects that orbit the sun are being able to be detected by current asteroid detection, affirmed asteroid mining firm Planetary Resources. The company is providing support to NASA for the contest.

Among leading online platforms for citizen scientists, who are working on a range of projects, including classifying galaxies, is Zooniverse. Nearly one million volunteers were racked by it in February.

Zooniverse team member Robert Simpson said detailed pictures are being taken by NASA but due to lots of noise out there from stars and other things, it is very important to ensure that code to find patterns in the data is written precisely.

He said citizen scientists can play a significant role in important scientific discoveries and breakthroughs. He told the BBC that its people who have the curiosity, not computers, and that is why people have often been able to find things in the data that computer couldn't.

The move to organize the contest is sparked by lack of scientists to analyze huge data sets created by NASA scientists, he added.