NASA adds a new detector to monitor space to protect Earth from the threat of space rocks. Because currently there are about 700 asteroids and 66 comets that are at their closest distance to the earth. The American space agency has stepped up efforts to track asteroids in recent years. NASA is also launching a one-way mission to crash the spacecraft into the distant asteroid Didymos in November 2021. The mission called the Dual Asteroid Diversion Test (DART) will measure the effectiveness of a controlled collision in deflecting space rock from Earth's path. And it could form the basis of future planetary asteroid defense systems. Meanwhile, the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) is essential for tracking asteroids and debris that may collide with Earth. ATLAS is operated from the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii. ATLAS started out as an array of just two telescopes in Hawaii, but has now been expanded to include two more telescopes in the Southern Hemisphere, namely in Chile and South Africa to give astronomers a complete view of the sky.
"An important part of planetary defense is finding asteroids before they find us," Kelly Fast, Near-Earth Object Observation Program Manager for NASA's Office of Planetary Defense Coordination.
Kelly said that with the addition of these two telescopes, ATLAS is now able to explore the entire dark sky every 24 hours.
"This makes it an important asset to NASA's ongoing efforts to find, track, and monitor NEOs," he said.
Since becoming active in 2017, ATLAS has detected more than 700 near-Earth asteroids and 66 comets. Two asteroids detected by ATLAS, namely 2019 MO and 2018 LA, actually hit Earth. Asteroid 2019 MO exploded off the southern coast of Puerto Rico and asteroid 2018 LA landed near the border of Botswana and South Africa. Fortunately, both asteroids were small and did not cause any damage to the earth. Lindley Johnson, planetary defense officer at NASA Headquarters said it had not found a significant asteroid impact threat to Earth.
"We're continuing to look for a sizeable population of asteroids that we know can still be found," he said.
NASA's goal is to find Earth-threatening asteroids as quickly as possible so they can be deflected using DART technology.
"DART, NEO Surveyor, and ATLAS are critical components of NASA's work to prepare Earth if we face the threat of an asteroid impact," he said.
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