The POT Is developing a space telescope designed to search for the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that deviate toward Earth’s orbital neighborhood, the Near-Earth Object Surveyor (NEO Surveyor).
In accordance with a publication of the US space agency, NEO Surveyor recently passed a rigorous technical and programmatic review. Now the mission is transitioning to the final phase of design and manufacturing and is establishing its technical, cost and schedule benchmark.
This telescope comes as part of the NASA Authorization Act of 2005 efforts, which calls for discovering and characterizing at least 90% of near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters (460 feet) across that are found 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) from our planet’s orbit.
Objects of this size are capable of causing significant regional damage, or worse, if they hit Earth, something Lindley Johnson, NASA Planetary Defense Officer at PDCO, fully understands: “NEO Surveyor represents the next generation of NASA’s ability to rapidly detect, track, and characterize potentially hazardous NEOs.”.
“Ground-based telescopes remain essential for us to continuously observe the skies, but a space-based infrared observatory is the latest high ground NASA’s planetary defense strategy will enable.”.
The telescope will go to the L1 Lagrange point
NEO Surveyor will travel a million miles to a region of gravitational stability, called L1 Lagrange pointbetween the Earth and the Sunwhere the spacecraft will orbit during its primary five-year mission.
From this location, the NEO Surveyor will view the Solar System at infrared wavelengths, light that is invisible to the human eye. Because those wavelengths are mostly blocked by Earth’s atmosphere, larger ground-based observatories can miss near-Earth objects than this space telescope. you will be able to detect using its modest light gathering aperture of almost 50 centimeters.
NEO Surveyor’s state-of-the-art detectors are designed to observe two heat-sensitive infrared bands that were specifically chosen so the spacecraft can track the hardest-to-find near-Earth objects, such as dark asteroids and comets that don’t reflect light.
In addition, NEO Surveyor, which will be a reality in 2028, will be able to find asteroids that approach Earth from the direction of the Sun, as well as those that lead and follow the orbit of our planet, where they are normally obscured by the glare of sunlight.
Amy Mainzer, director of mission research at the University of Arizona in Tucson, noted: “For the first time in the history of our planet, the inhabitants of Earth are developing methods to protect Earth by deflecting dangerous asteroids. But before we can divert them, we must first find them. NEO Surveyor will be a game changer in that effort.”.
