Science

NASA unveils $600m ‘planetary defence’ system after devastating asteroid ‘slips net'


The telescope was unveiled after an asteroid, capable of destroying a city almost collided with Earth two months ago. Classed as an astronomical “near-miss”, the asteroid was only detected a day before it entered the Earth’s vicinity.

Speaking on the asteroid, NASA’s planetary defence officer, Lindley Johnson admitted: “This one did sneak upon us and it is an interesting story on the limitations of our survey network.”

Moreover, NASA’s Centre for Near-Earth Studies manager Paul Chodas told The Times that “this object slipped through a whole series of our capture nets”.

He added: “I wonder how many times this situation has happened without the asteroid being discovered at all.”

Such was the severity of the near-miss that it helped greenlight NASA’s new telescope, to help detect the planetary rocks from further away.

NASA asteroid news: Agency unveils asteroid defence programme

NASA asteroid news: Agency unveils asteroid defence programme (Image: GETTY)

NASA asteroid news: The telescope will cost $600m

NASA asteroid news: The telescope will cost $600m (Image: NASA)

The new infrared telescope will be based on a previous concept, NEOCam which was originally proposed in 2013.

The failure of the project is something, NASA associate administrator Mr Zurbuchen was the “one of the biggest screw-ups of my job”.

In order to receive more funding, the telescope is classed as a “planetary defence” rather than a “scientific mission”.

Fifteen years ago, NASA was tasked by the US Congress to detect 90 percent of Near Earth Objects (NEOs) larger than 459 feet (140m) wide by 2020.

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NASA news: The telescope will improve the chances of detention drastically

NASA news: The telescope will improve the chances of detention drastically (Image: GETTY)

Despite no funding being diverted to the project, that have been 20,000 NEOs have been catalogued.

The new satellite, however, should increase the discovery rate by 65 percent within its first five years according to NASA.

That figure could increase to around 90 percent within a decade of its launch.

Lori Glaze, director for the planetary science division of the Science Mission Directorate said; “I think this is a big step, it’s something that we’ve wanted to do for quite a while.”

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NASA asteroid news: NASA has detected 20,000 NEOs

NASA asteroid news: NASA has detected 20,000 NEOs (Image: GETTY)

NASA asteroid news: The chances will go to 90 percent

NASA asteroid news: The chances will go to 90 percent (Image: GETTY)

As it currently stands, the process of discovering asteroids was likened to trying to spot a “lump of coal in the night’s sky” according to astronomer Amy Mainzer, part of NASA’s asteroid hunting mission in April.

She added: “NEOs are intrinsically faint because they are mostly really small and far away from us in space.

“Add to this the fact that some of them are as dark as printer toner, and trying to spot them against the black of space is very hard.”

In 2013, an asteroid exploded over Chelyabinsk in Russia, producing a show wave which damaged thousands of buildings and injured close to 1,500.

Asteroids

Asteroids (Image: Express)

The prospect of an infrared telescope combined with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a ground-based facility being built in Chile, will eventually ramp-up Earths asteroid defences and turn the current goals into reality.

According to Jay Melosh, a planetary scientist at Purdue University warned of how man asteroids there are in space which need the help of an infrared system to detect them.

He added: “There are a lot of really dark asteroids out there and that pushes the need for the infrared system.”

NASA news: The Acraman crater in South Australia from an asteroid strike 590 million years ago

NASA news: The Acraman crater in South Australia from an asteroid strike 590 million years ago (Image: GETTY)

Currently, the majority of NASA’s budget is spent on the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission being built by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory.

Set for completion by 2021, DART seeks to test the possibility of deflecting the path of an asteroid as opposed to destroying it.

Though funding is a big question in the advancement of the agency’s defence systems, the mission does mark a developmental step towards NASA taking an external groups proposal and adapting it for its internal work.



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