NASA finally approves the launch of an infrared asteroid hunting space telescope able to locate threats 30M miles away…
NASA has approved the Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope to help the space agency be better prepared for future asteroids that could pose a threat to Earth.
The 20-foot-long infrared telescope would help astronomers and planetary scientists find ‘most’ of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 30 million miles of Earth’s orbit, also known as near-Earth objects (NEOs).
According to NASA, there are just over 25000 NEOs, but many more are waiting to be discovered.