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Asteroids pass by the Earth all the time, pretty much as far as everyone can remember, but it bears wondering how space agencies manage to spot these rocks. Now, an expert reveals how it is done.
Express reports that Professor Alan Harris of the German Aerospace Center explained how space agencies are able to track asteroids down. Professor Harris revealed that the United States had funded several observatories as part of its Planetary Defense program. He explained that these observatories are on the lookout for moving objects amongst the stars because the stars do not move as they are far away. “Asteroids passing much nearer to the Earth actually can be seen moving across the background stars even during a single night, and so they take the exposures of as much of the sky as they can per night,” said Harris.
Professor Harris went on to reveal that these observatories have a special kind of software that can detect moving objects in space. “You can very easily see if you compared to pictures, what has moved in that picture. They can sort of join the dots if you like and calculate a track across the sky, which they can calculate an orbit from the positions the object moves through during the night,” explained the professor and senior scientist.
However, Harris also revealed that there are still some Near-Earth asteroids that have yet to be discovered, and those certain asteroids may even be able to make it past the atmosphere undetected, even with the existing technology. Thus, asteroid collisions may happen even without warning. The damage these rocks may cause will mostly depend on its size as smaller asteroids may burn on the atmosphere.
Meanwhile, NASA is developing the DART mission, where they will launch a probe into space as a last line of defense against any celestial objects that may make an unannounced visit. DART is short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test and is scheduled to launch by 2022. The probe will orbit the smaller of the two Didymos asteroids as it hurtles towards the rocks at a speed of 21,565 kilometers per hour.
