Chinese researchers say they believe a group of rockets could be used to change the path of asteroids that might pass near Earth. A team at China’s National Space Science Center carried out simulations on the proposed asteroid defense system. The scientists said their research suggests 23 rockets of China’s biggest kind of rockets could force a large asteroid to change direction. They said the rockets could move the asteroid from its path by a distance of 1.4 times Earth’s radius. Most experts agree that there is only a small likelihood that a large asteroid or other space object will crash into Earth and cause great destruction. However, many organizations do recognize the real risk of such an event. For example, the U.S. space agency NASA and its international partners continuously search the skies for what scientists call near-Earth objects (NEOs). Such objects include asteroids and comets that come within 50 million kilometers of Earth’s orbit.