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NASA’s New Near-Earth Objects Tracker Will See Even the Sneakiest of Space Rocks

As of last month, the number of detected near-Earth asteroids jumped over the 30,000 mark. Of them, 2,300 or so are large and close enough to Earth to be potentially hazardous. Again, those are the ones we know about, as the space around our planet is sufficiently large to allow for a lot more to be lurking around.
NEO Surveyor rendering 21 photos
Photo: NASA
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On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft slammed into an asteroid called Dimorphos, effectively changing its motion through space and proving that if need be, an Armageddon-style mission to protect our planet could in theory be devised.

But for that to happen we first need to know what’s out there. At the moment, the main tools scientists use to look for dangers in space are ground-based telescopes, and the occasional space-based ones, like the NEOWISE. But a new observatory, capable of detecting even the sneakiest of space rocks, is being planned.

NASA calls it NEO Surveyor, and describes it as the first telescope purpose-built to look for near-Earth objects (and that’s what the NEO in the name stands for).

The Surveyor is still in the planning stage, having completed the technical and programmatic review. NASA announced this week it is now moving ahead with the final design-and-fabrication phase, and also plans to determine the technical, cost, and schedule elements required to make the telescope.

Just like the James Webb, Surveyor will not be parked in orbit around Earth, but will move to one of five Lagrange points between our planet and the Sun. The spacecraft will make its way to Lagrange point 1 (L1, where the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory Satellite is already floating), located almost one million miles (1.45 million km) from home.

The telescope has a primary mission estimated to last about five years, but the time of launch is yet to be decided. From L1, it will use its instruments and a “modest light-collecting aperture of nearly 20 inches (50 centimeters)” to look at the space around Earth in heat-sensitive infrared wavelengths.

This method will allow it to spot difficult-to-find space hazards, including dark asteroids (chunks of rock that leave no trace as they move through space, because all ice on them is gone) and comets that don’t reflect much light. Also, asteroids coming from the direction of the Sun will also be visible to this thing.

Aside from spotting asteroids and comets, Surveyor will also give us data on what the objects it tracks are made of, their shape and rotation, but also their orbits.

The project is being handled by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), and it’ll probably not take off before 2028. When ready though, it will become a major tool in NASA’s efforts of finding and labeling 90 percent of NEOs more than 460 feet (140 meters) across that approach our world’s orbit within 30 million miles (48 million km).
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Editor's note: Gallery shows NEOWISE images.

About the author: Daniel Patrascu
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Daniel loves writing (or so he claims), and he uses this skill to offer readers a "behind the scenes" look at the automotive industry. He also enjoys talking about space exploration and robots, because in his view the only way forward for humanity is away from this planet, in metal bodies.
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