Well , it ’s about metre . Asteroids hitting Earth has been abig problemfor life this major planet since forever , and at last government around the world have been united in their inability to give a shit . And they did it without Gort the giant robot forcing them ! Next twelvemonth , the Canadian Space Agency willlaunchthe Near Earth Object Surveillance Satellite ( NEOSSat ) , the first place - borne asteroid track down gadget ever made .
https://gizmodo.com/incoming-earths-due-for-a-massive-comet-impact-386969
If a comet or asteroid does n’t slam into the planet between now and then , ending civilisation , it will greatly amend our opportunity of kill ourselves off , or else of being snuffed out by some cosmic chance event . give thanks you , Canucks .
As this New Scientist clause aver , uranologist on the ground have been wait for potentially peril asteroids for 10 , but even a pocket-sized blank space scope like NEOSSat will really help us out :
Scientists are using earth - based telescope to track down more of the near - Earth objects ( NEOs ) to determine if any could potentially hit the planet in the foreseeable time to come . But some of these objective are hard to see from the ground .
t will swear on a telescope with a 15 - centimeter mirror , smaller than many backyard telescopes used by inexpert astronomers . master scientists for the missionary station are Alan Hildebrand of the University of Calgary and Brad Wallace of Defence Research and Development Canada .
Despite its modest dimensions , the spacecraft ’s unique vantage point in space may provide it to espy object that are hard to see from the ground .
Most of the NEOs observe so far have elongated scope that extend far away from the Sun . But some never venture much beyond Earth ’s orbit .
These stay close to the Sun in the sky , meaning they must be observed when the Sun is not far below the horizon – before aurora and after sunset . At those time , the gleaming of the sky can make the objective hard to see .
work above the atmosphere , NEOSSat will have a clearer panorama of such objects . It is expected to catalogue at least 50 % of the 1 that span more than 1 kilometre .
These close - in objects are more dangerous than their more far - flung siblings because they expend more time in the vicinity of Earth , where there is the potential for a hit , tell Timothy Spahr . An astronomer at the Harvard - Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge , Massachusetts , US , Spahr co - author a 2007 NASA report to the US Congress on the risk to Earth from NEOs .
NEOSSat only weigh about 60 kg and cost $ 10 million to build … about what it costs for a candy bar in the Pentagon cafeteria . And for that pittance all we get is an unprecedented grade of interplanetary defense . We owe you one , Canada .
Source : young Scientist(image : TreeHugger )
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