To increase the knowledge of physical properties of small bodies orbiting close our planet (known as NEO: Near Earth Objects), which can occasionally pose a collision risk with Earth, it is operative the NEOROCKS (Near-Earth Object Rapid Observation, Characterization and Key Simulations) European project, financed by the Horizon 2020 UE program.

The first issue of the project newsletter is available at https://www.neorocks.eu/: it is an online magazine to report about news in the NEO field, with in-depth analysis, science articles for researchers and passionate people, interviews and fun facts.

In the first issue, the editorial by Elisabetta Dotto from INAF- Osservatorio Astronomico di Roma, project coordinator, describes the newsletter aims and, more in general, those of the NEOROCKS project: “Each newsletter issue will report updates on our work and will share with the public important findings”, says Dotto. “The published articles will present the NEOROCKS world and will allow to learn a bit more on asteroids. The challenge for the physical characterisation of these bodies has to keep pace with the continuously growing discovery rate, and the framework of “planetary defense” is a more and more global issue”.

Among the articles of the first newsletter issue, you will find a discussion on the main methods used by astronomers from INAF and from the whole NEOROCKS consortium to discover and classify the asteroids by means of their surface properties, monitored with on-ground telescopes; you will find also an interesting excursus on the historical origin of the NEO study, with the tale of the discover of the first NEO that dates back to more than 250 years, in the night between 14^th and 15^th June 1770. Moreover, there is also a section dedicated to the youngest, with “Neorocks4Kids”: the magical “fairy tail” of the solar system formation and of the NEO evolution is narrated to kids, with a simple but effective language and with the aid of charming drawings.