Earth is still vulnerable to an asteroid strike that could cause potentially devastating damage to our planet, according to President Barack Obama's chief science advisor.

White House Office of Science and Technology Policy Director John Holdren made the announcement Wednesday and stated that to the planet, but there’s still a lot of work left to do, Space.com reported.

"We are not fully prepared, but we are on a trajectory to get much more so," said Holdren. He cited the February 2013 meteor explosion over Chelyabinsk, Russia, as an example, adding that strikes such as these are thought to occur every 100 years. The strike from the 65-foot-wide object .

"If we are going to be as capable a civilization as our technology allows, we need to be prepared for even those rare events, because they could do a lot of damage to the Earth," Holdren added. "This is ahazard that, 65 million years ago, the dinosaurs succumbed to. We have to be smarter than the dinosaurs."

Holdren hopes to do this with the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM).

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According to NASA, the ARM is ", collect a multi-ton boulder from its surface, and use it in an enhanced gravity tractor asteroid deflection demonstration." The purpose of this is to redirect the boulder into a stable orbit around the moon, where astronauts can explore it and secure samples in the mid-2020s.

The gravity tractor method may also nudge potentially threatening asteroids off-track over the course of years or decades, Space.com also reported.

The project will also help send humans to Mars, as it will test the capabilities needed for a mission to the Red Planet in the 2030s. NASA is planning to launch a probe toward an asteroid near the planet in late 2021. Currently, the tentative target is a 1,300-foot-wide rock named 2008 EV5.

While smaller asteroids can do great damage on a local scale, experts think space rocks must be at least 0.6 miles wide or so to threaten human civilization, Space.com added.

NASA scientists estimate that they have found at least 90 percent of these mountain-sized, near-Earth asteroids, none of which pose a threat for the foreseeable future.

MORE ON WEATHER.COM: March 2015 Asteroid Capture

A conceptual image of an astronaut, anchored to a foot restraint, preparing to investigate the asteroid boulder. (NASA)

At a Glance

The Earth is still vulnerable to a major asteroid strike.NASA scientists estimate that they have found at least 90 percent of these mountain-sized, near-Earth asteroids.NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) may help protect the planet by nudging the asteroids off-track.