To detect potentially dangerous asteroids and comets heading towards Earth, the US Space Agency (NASA) has agreed to design a space telescope, or “New Server”, to do the job.
According to CNN, the 20-foot (6-meter) infrared telescope will bolster planetary defense by helping astronomers find asteroids and comets within 30 million miles (48 million kilometers) of Earth’s orbit.
Its mission is currently scheduled to launch in the first half of 2026.
“The telescope will have the ability to accelerate the rate at which (NASA) can detect dangerous asteroids and comets that could pose a threat to Earth, and it is designed to detect 90 percent of the asteroids,” said Mike Kelly, a New Server program scientist at NASA headquarters. It is 140 meters (459 feet) in size and larger within a decade of its launch.
Wednesday 7 july , was International Asteroid Day, in commemoration of the largest asteroid impact recorded on Earth, with a focus on the real danger of asteroids that could collide with our planet.
In 1908, a powerful asteroid hit a river in a remote forest in Siberia, Russia. The event damaged trees and forests on an area of 770 square miles, which is three-quarters the size of the US state of Rhode Island. This collision threw people to the ground in a town 40 miles away.
This explains why astronomers want people to be aware of what might result from collisions. Detecting the threat of near-Earth objects that can cause significant harm is a primary focus of NASA and other space organizations around the world.
In 2010, NASA completed its goal of detecting 90 percent of all near-Earth objects larger than 1,000 meters (3,280 feet). The agency was then directed under the National Aeronautics and Space Administration Act of 2005 to find 90 percent of near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters (459 feet). So far, NASA has found 40 percent of objects within this range.
The ability to detect and distinguish potentially hazardous NEOs by astronomers allows NEOs to be tracked. At the moment, there are no known threats of an expected impact of certain objects on our planet over the next century. However, unknown NEOs may lead to unexpected effects.
A New Telescope To Discover Any Dangerous Space Visitor
