NASA has started the construction of the "asteroid hunter"
NASA engineers have begun to manufacture the first components of the space "asteroid hunter" NEO Surveyor, which will search for potentially dangerous asteroids. This is reported by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration on the official website.
NEO Surveyor is the first space telescope that will help NASA in planetary defense by finding and tracking dangerous objects approaching the Earth.
"For the first time in the history of the Earth, people are developing methods to protect our planet by deflecting dangerous asteroids. But before we can reject them, we need to find them. NEO Surveyor will change the rules of the game in this direction," said Amy Mainzer, head of mission research at the University of Arizona in Tucson.
The specialized telescope will be located at a distance of 1.5 million km from our planet at the L1 Lagrange point of the Earth-Sun system, where it will be able to scan large areas of the sky. It will conduct observations in the infrared range, thanks to which it will be able to detect dark asteroids and burnt-out comets. The telescope will also help to find asteroids flying towards the Earth from the direction of the Sun, which are practically invisible to ground-based observatories.
At the moment, the launch of NEO Surveyor is scheduled for 2028. The total budget of the mission is estimated at $1.2 billion.
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Photo: nasa.gov
