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NASA is building a $ 600 million (US $ 482 million) in-orbit telescope to hunt for asteroids that could be subject to a potentially catastrophic collision with the Earth.
Plans for the so-called "Near Earth Objects Monitoring Mission" have been advanced after an asteroid large enough to level a city was spotted near the Earth in July.
The body, christened "2019 OK" by astronomers, surprised scientists when it was discovered only the day before the closest point of its flight by a Brazilian observatory.
2019 OK has grown to about 44,300 miles (71,400 kilometers) of the Earth, a fifth of the distance between our planet and the moon.
In astronomical terms, such a distance is essentially a "near miss".
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NASA is building a 600 million orbit (US $ 482 million) orbit telescope to hunt for asteroids that could be subject to a potentially catastrophic collision with the Earth.
According to NASA, 2019 OK would have triggered an explosive wave capable of destroying an area about 81 kilometers in diameter, had it penetrated into the Earth's atmosphere.
Astronomers worried about the proximity of the asteroid before its detection by the Earth.
"This one has taught us to sneak in and it's an interesting story about the limitations of our survey network," NASA's Global Defense Officer Lindley Johnson said on July 25.
"This object has slipped through a whole series of our capture nets," said Paul Chodas, head of NASA's Earth Studies Center at the Times.
"I wonder how often this situation has occurred without the asteroid being discovered."
The new satellite is expected to help the US space agency detect about 65 percent of unknown near-Earth objects in its first five years of operation, NASA deputy administrator Thomas Zurbuchen said on September 23.
This figure is expected to reach about 90% in the next ten years, he added.
The infrared telescope will be based on an earlier but unrealized concept called NEOCam, which was first proposed in 2013.
According to the Times, Mr. Zurbuchen stated that the lack of development of NEOCam at this time was "one of the biggest gaps in my work".
The sooner that NASA could launch the surveillance satellite would now be 2025.
Plans for the so-called "Near Earth Objects Monitoring Mission" have been advanced after an asteroid large enough to level a city was spotted near the Earth in July. The body – nicknamed "2019 OK & # 39; – surprised the experts when it was discovered one day before the nearest point of its passage.
Fifteen years ago, the US Congress had asked NASA to detect 90% of NEOs whose size exceeded 140 meters by 2020.
However, no specific funding has been allocated for this activity.
Nevertheless, more than 20,000 Named Executive Officers have already been cataloged, with about 30 additions to the recordings made each week.
A study published in June by the US National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine has highlighted the need for space telescopes to help ground observatories hunt for NEOs.
The new telescope will be designated as a "planetary defense" rather than a "scientific" mission, which will allow NASA to secure funding for the project.
A NASA scientist said that defending the Earth against dangerous asteroids is to detect them by heat using an infrared telescope called NEOCAM. The comet Catalina (photo) in 2015 was captured by such a telescope called NEOWISE
Trying to spot asteroids with current telescopes is like trying to spot a "block of coal in the night sky," said astronomer Amy Mainzer of NASA's Asteroid Fighter Mission at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena. , California, in April.
Dr. Mainzer and colleagues proposed a new system designed to spot large meteors that can cause significant damage.
This would identify incoming bodies on a collision course with Earth that could potentially cause a huge loss of life – just like the famous meteor that wiped out dinosaurs about 66 million years ago.
An early warning system would give scientists more time to develop a strategy to intercept and divert such a rock, she said.
Dr. Mainzer warned that current telescopes do not detect asteroids before it is too late to avoid a potentially catastrophic impact.
The Chelyabinsk meteor, which measured only about 17 to 20 m wide, for example, had caused extensive ground damage and about 1,500 injuries when it had exploded into the Earth's atmosphere. over Russia in February 2013.
On the other hand, the big asteroid that struck the Earth and caused the extinction of the dinosaurs was about 10 km wide.
Dr. Amy Mainzer said that trying to spot asteroids via their "dim" light was tantamount to trying to spot a "coal block in the night sky," but that a camera mission was going on. near-Earth object (NEOCam) (photo) detects heat the waves would make it much more accurate
To avoid a fate similar to humanity, NEOs must be detected and tracked well before approaching the Earth.
However, spotting these bodies in the first place can be difficult.
"NEOs are inherently weak because they are usually very small and far from us in space," said Dr. Mainzer.
"Add to that the fact that some of them are as dark as the toner of the printer and it is very difficult to try to spot them in the dark of space."
The telescope proposed by Dr. Mainzer would use the latest camera technology to give astronomers enough time to intercept asteroids and comets on a land route.
The announcement of its plan comes after NASA awarded SpaceX of Elon Musk a £ 52.7 million ($ 69 million) contract for launching a spacecraft to to investigate whether asteroids could be ejected from a collision with the Earth.
"We are proposing to NASA a new telescope, NEOCam, to perform a much more comprehensive job of mapping asteroid locations and measuring their size," said Dr. Mainzer.
"If we find an object only days away from the impact, our choices will be greatly limited, so in our research efforts, we focused on NEO's research when they are farther from home." Earth."
This, she added, would provide "the maximum time and open up a wider range of mitigation opportunities".
Dr. Mainzer has proposed to NASA a new NEOCam telescope that she believes could prevent rocks similar to those that annihilate dinosaurs from posing a risk to the Earth. The photo below is a collection of images of the 2305 asteroid King by the WISE probe.
The findings of the NEOWISE telescope team (wide-field infrared surveyor and near-Earth objects) are essential for setting up a defensive strategy against asteroids threatening the Earth.
This includes getting them screwed out of the way – but this method would require details on the size and composition of the asteroid, in order to calculate its mass.
Dr. Mainzer added that a new telescope could also be used to study ancient comets and asteroids.
"With the NEOWISE mission, we can spot objects of any surface color and use them to measure their sizes and other surface properties," she said.
"These objects are inherently interesting because some are supposed to be as old as the original material that made up the solar system."
"One of the things we've discovered is that the composition of the company's senior management is very diverse."
Dr. Mainzer and his colleagues are striving to take advantage of advances in camera technology to facilitate NEO research.
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