Although participants don't actually join a NEON team, they stay in guest housing at NASA's NEON training center in Pasadena, Calif., and
experience the same simulators that cadets use to assess the threat
of an incoming asteroid or comet, determine whether it needs to be nudged into a different
orbit or destroyed, and carry
out their mission.
Although no planets have been detected
orbiting Tau Ceti as yet, it is likely that any planet found to
orbit within the star's dust disk would
experience relatively frequent bombardment from asteroids and comets
of the size that is believed to have wiped
out the dinosaurs and other types
of multi-cellular life on Earth.