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NASA regularly monitors asteroids that are moving towards Earth. Now, the space agency has started working on an infrared telescope that will keep an eye on these rocks from space. NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is creating the asteroid-hunting spacecraft called NEO Surveyor (Near-Earth Object Surveyor), which will hunt for asteroids and comets that might pose a danger to our planet. 

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It is the first space telescope that has been designed specifically for planetary defence purposes. The launch has been planned for the end of 2027 and will be placed a million miles away at the L1 Lagrange point - a point between Earth and the Sun.

Once here, it will block sunlight to let the mission find and track near-Earth objects that might be coming from the direction of the Sun.

The telescope will especially be useful to track asteroids called Earth Trojans, which are hard to spot from the ground or the orbit. 

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The detectors of the telescope can observe two bands of infrared light that the human eye cannot see. Asteroids that are not visible otherwise glow brightly in infrared because of the Sun. This technology will, therefore, help locate dark asteroids and comets which don’t reflect a lot of visible light. 

Aim of NEO spacecraft

“NEO Surveyor is optimised to help us to do one specific thing: enable humanity to find the most hazardous asteroids and comets far enough in advance so we can do something about them,” Amy Mainzer, survey director for NEO Surveyor and a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said.

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She added that the aim is to have a spacecraft that can find objects "with the greatest chance of hitting Earth. In the process, we will learn a lot about their origins and evolution.”

The only instrument on the spacecraft will be this high-end telescope. It has a blocky aluminium body and is the size of a washer-and-dryer set. It will rely on curved mirrors that will focus light onto its infrared detectors and minimise optical aberrations.

With the NEO Surveyor, NASA aims to move forward towards reaching the goal set by the US Congress. Under this, the space agency needs to find and characterise at least 90 per cent of the near-Earth objects which are more than 460 feet (140 metres) in size and likely to come within 30 million miles (48 million kilometres) of our planet’s orbit. 

Notably, if such objects hit Earth, significant damage can happen.