NASA says it is testing its next-generation telescope that could one day help astronomers spot a city- or even planet-destroying asteroid like in the 2021 movie “Don’t Look Up.”
The Near-Earth Object Surveyor, or NEO Surveyor, is the U.S. space agency’s first infrared space telescope specifically designed to look for these potential hazards, helping to reveal even the darkest threats in space and those hidden in the glare of our sun.
Astronomers have found fewer than half of the estimated existing city-killer asteroids and it would take another 30 years to find all of them without the $1.6 billion telescope, according to The Planetary Society, a non-profit space science organization.
“Because our night skies are now crowded with thousands of bright satellites and asteroids are tiny and dark, ground-based telescopes have trouble finding near-Earth objects quickly. Placing a small telescope in space solves both these problems,” Casey Dreier, the society’s director, said in a 2023 statement. “Within 10 years this telescope is predicted to find more [of them] than found in the last 50 years,” he added.
The telescope is set for launch no sooner than September 2027, traveling about a million miles from Earth to a fixed point between the Earth and space and operating for at least five years.
Much like NASA’s dust-clearing James Webb Space Telescope, the NEO Surveyor will detect objects using their heat. But unlike galaxies, the heat these objects emit comes from the sun.
“Earth-approaching asteroids and comets are warmed by the sun, and they give off heat that the NEO Surveyor mission will be able to pick up,” Amy Mainzer, a professor at the University of Arizona who is leading the mission, explained in a 2021 release. “Even asteroids as dark as a chunk of coal won’t be able to hide from our infrared eyes.”
The Surveyor’s predecessor NEOWISE – Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer – also featured infrared capabilities but was not initially designed to find asteroids and comets before it was launched in 2009. The instrument detected more than 34,000 unknown asteroids and over 3,000 near-Earth objects; its mission concluded in 2024.
There are still many more near-Earth objects to discover – although astronomers have detected more than 40,000 near-Earth asteroids, per the European Space Agency – and the Surveyor’s goal is to find 90 percent of those with a diameter of 460 feet within a decade of its launch.
“We think there are about 25,000 NEOs large enough to wipe out an area like Southern California,” Mainzer said. “Once they get bigger than about 450 feet in diameter, they can cause severe regional damage. We want to find these, and as many smaller ones as possible.”
That’s why the NEO Surveyor has a 20-foot-long sun shade to allow the telescope to ensure the sun doesn’t block scientists’ view and a 12-foot enclosure to protect the tech. It also has two state-of-the-art science cameras with a lens that opens up nearly 20 inches.
“Project engineers plan to carry out focus tests in a chamber at [the Space Dynamics Laboratory in Logan, Utah,] that simulates the extreme environment of deep space to ensure the instrument works as designed and the camera remains in focus at very cold temperatures and in zero gravity,” NASA said in a Tuesday statement.
Data from the mission will be sent back to the California Institute of Technology’s NEO Surveyor Survey Data Center in Pasadena and will be reported to the international Minor Planet Center, which is responsible for collecting observations of asteroids and comets.
Then, the data can be used by planetary defense groups.
There are no known threats to Earth right now. But if a city killer is incoming, NASA has a way to deflect its trajectory, as shown in the success of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test.
Still, NASA’s independent regulatory Office of the Inspector General said there are some crucial areas to address to ensure readiness, including making sure there is better structure and management for the Near-Earth Object Observations Program and tackling maintenance issues at ground-based observatories.
The 1,480-foot-long asteroid Apophis is projected to fly so close to Earth in 2029 that people can see it with the naked eye. But limited-funded plans exist to take advantage of the event, the office said.
NASA was considering terminating one such plan and that mission is not listed in the Fiscal Year 2027 budget request, “indicating that it is once again slated for cancellation,” the American Astronomical Society says.
Funding for the NEO Surveyor has been decreased in the budget, NASA said, “due to cost savings and improved risk posture.”