The asteroid hunting mission publishes its fifth year of data



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If the idea of ​​an asteroid entering Earth prevents you from sleeping, think of a mission called NEOWISE, which reincarnated a ancient astrophysical vessel hunt space rocks near the Earth.

The spacecraft has just released its fifth full year of data on asteroids and comets in orbit around the sun near the earth. But scientists already know that the mission will not last forever. They are thinking about what should follow and are working to ensure that humans are not caught unawares by the debris of the solar system that could wreak havoc on the Earth.

"NEOWISE has recently surpassed the 95 billion recorded measurements of asteroids, comets, stars and galaxies – a remarkable feat for a recycled spacecraft," said Lindley Johnson, global planetary defense officer. NASA and NASA Head of the Global Defense Coordination Office. said in a statement.

"This asteroid hunter has measured the size of more than 1,000 near-Earth asteroids and still produces excellent data, making it a unique asset in our portfolio of asteroid hunting telescopes and a important prototype for a NEO study mission in the space, "he added.

Related: Humanity will turn a spaceship into an asteroid in a few years to save us all

Dozens of thousands rocks of space come in and out of the vicinity of the Earth. But if scientists can look at them for a moment, they can calculate the orbital trajectories of these objects and determine if they pose a risk to life on Earth.

Only one problem: these objects are difficult to see in visible light. "NEOs are inherently weak, because they are mostly very small and far from us in space," said Amy Mainzer, NEOWISE principal investigator and astronomer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California. said in a separate statement. "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."

NEOWISE therefore studies infrared light, in which asteroids and comets appear bright. The mission identified more than 300 previously unknown objects and collected a host of observations on the space rocks initially spotted by other instruments.

All this information provides the details that scientists need to feed their calculations. That way, if they spot an asteroid it will go a bit too close for comfort, humans will have time to decide to do something that would take rock away from space.

But it is not just about planetary defense. There is a lot of science to do with these data too. "These objects are inherently interesting because some are supposed to be as old as the original material that made up the solar system, "said Mainzer.One of the things we have discovered is that the composition of NEOs is very diverse."

Due to the versatile utility of NEOWISE data, Mainzer and his colleagues are already designing a mission that could bring it to fruition. This mission, the object camera close to the Earth (NEOCam), would this time use a telescope specially designed for this purpose, but would follow the same principles as NEOWISE.

Email Meghan Bartels to [email protected] or follow her @meghanbartels. follow us on Twitter @Spacedotcom and on Facebook.

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