A "mountain-size" asteroid is passing by the Earth right now, and we'd all be able to see it if the snow weren't ruining our lives.

You know what we haven't done in a while? Found an asteroid that's about to fly uncomfortably close to Earth. And that's not necessarily a good thing. Just because we don't see them doesn't mean they're not out there, as a few close passes showed earlier this year, and a government audit has concluded that NASA's program to detect asteroids and protect the world from devastation is way behind schedule.

NASA has a plan to redirect an asteroid and park it in lunar orbit. They want to give the Moon a moon! It sounds a little far-fetched, but we're completely on board, and so are the folks at Kerbal Space Program. They've teamed up with NASA to add the mission to the game, and you can play it right now.

There's a lot going on at SXSW including this booth by NASA to let tradeshow attendees know that space is still out there. We took a quick look at the booth and learned about how NASA is planning on protecting us all from asteroids.

Grab your no. 2 pencils and Texas Instruments! NASA announced today that they will be awarding $35,000 in prizes between now and August to civilians who develop asteroid-detecting algorithms. NASA, I'm flattered that you would ask, but honestly I'd prefer if you had this whole "preventing planetary extinction" thing down already.

While you were peacefully sleeping last night, NASA announced that they had detected a 100 foot-wide asteroid that will fly closer to Earth than the Moon today around 1 pm PST and 4 pm EST. NASA predicts that the asteroid will pass us without event, but just in case they're wrong, you might want to knock out that bucket list in the next 5 hours.

Don't worry, you're not going to get hit by asteroid 2000 EM26. Still, it's a little unsettling that it was supposed to fly by last night, and no one has any idea where it is. The universe is a big place, and it's more likely to be found farther away from us than closer, but it's a little disconcerting that we were so wrong about its trajectory.

Okay everybody, don't freak out or anything, but there's a "potentially hazardous" asteroid that's coming kiiiiiinda close to the Earth. Oh, and also? Scientists now think we're about ten times more likely to get hit by foreign space objects than we originally thought. But hey, at least you have the weekend to finish House of Cards, right?

The Geekosystem Podcast is back! There's a bit of a change in the lineup, but join Senior Editor Glen Tickle as he's joined again by Associate Editor Victoria McNally and brand new Associate Editor Dan Van Winkle to discuss asteroids, Editors' Picks, and a heated discussion about the reboot of Reboot.

NASA spacecraft Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) has in the past discovered and characterized thousands of asteroids before being put in "hibernation," which is a fairly terrifying euphemism. But next month it's coming back for one last mission: identifying potentially dangerous asteroids, that will then be... "relocated."

Potential asteroid collisions have been big in the news lately, and as a nation we're are more afraid of them than we've ever been -- possibly because in the past we used to be afraid of things like polio and getting murdered by bandits. Is stopping an asteroid even possible? AsapSCIENCE requested the help of our friend Bill Nye, whom you might remember from being the Science Guy, to explain things to us.

The  Asteroids Movie that has been in the works for several years now, jumping from writer to writer, but firmly under the production of Transformers producer Lorenzo di Bonaventura, appears to have a basic description now. Hollywood was able to inject something beyond exploding asteroids into the Atari game that revolves around the simple objective of shooting asteroids, even when di Bonaventura himself admitted that plot-wise, "there's nothing to the game."  What's more, the film may not be the massive piece of destruction that was expected.

Hop into your triangle-shaped spaceship and start shooting dots at drifting polygons, because NASA wants you to do your part in stopping asteroids from destroying the planet. On Tuesday, the space agency announced the Asteroid Grand Challenge, a wide-ranging initiative aimed at tracking and eliminating asteroids that could impact the Earth. To achieve its goals, NASA is reaching out to the public for help.

As you may recall, asteroid 1998 QE2 gave the Earth a buzz just over a week ago. Upon close examination, it was determined that 1998 QE2 actually had a moon of its own. That's not unheard of, though we didn't know 1998 QE2 had one. Some images were combined to form a video of the binary group shortly after discovery, but now an even better look at the two has been created thanks to scientists working with the Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California.

Today, you've got a chance to get caught up on all the latest news and science on asteroids courtesy of We The Geeks, a Google Hangout presented by the White House. At 2pm EDT this afternoon, you can join Bill Nye, NASA's own Lori Garver, astronaut Ed Lu, IAU astronomer Jose Luis Galache and aspiring asteroid miner Peter Diamandis of Planetary Resources for a round table discussion on all things asteroids -- from how we could harvest them for minerals to what happens if we have to try and dodge one.

1998 QE2, the huge asteroid passing near Earth today, has yet to make its closest approach, but researchers are already using radar to make some surprising discoveries about the space rock as it hurtles through our neck of the cosmic woods. Case in point? Yesterday, NASA officials learned that 1.7 mile-wide 1998 QE2 -- that's as big as nine cruise ships, to use an unexpected but largely accepted metric -- isn't travelling alone. The enormous asteroid is bringing its own smaller moon along for the ride, which you can get a look at in the video below.

A very large asteroid will pass very close to the Earth on Friday, but it's nothing to worry about. It's only close in astronomical terms, and poses no threat to our planet. So what's all the fuss about? The asteroid, dubbed 1998 QE2, will be a prime target for radar telescopes to study. Those of us with non-radar telescopes might be lucky enough to catch a dim glimpse.