NASA's Asteroid Tracking System Seeks Hazardous Near-Earth Objects, Passing Critical Test

How do you find an asteroid? You build a detector, of course. NASA is working on an infrared sensor that could improve the agency's future tracking of asteroids and comets. Once fully completed, it could potentially help hunt down an asteroid for capture in its initiative to bring a giant space rock into the moon's orbit for study.

Called the Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam), the device was tested in an environment that mimicked the temperatures and pressures of deep space. The NEOCam sensor is designed to be more reliable and significantly lighter in weight for launching aboard space-based telescopes. It could potentially observe the comings and goings of near-Earth objects (NEOs).

"The sensor represents one of many investments made by NASA's Discovery Program and its Astrophysics Research Analysis Program in innovative technologies to significantly improve future missions designed to protect Earth from potentially hazardous asteroids," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office, in a press release.

NEOs are asteroids and comets with orbits that come within 28 million miles of Earth's path around the sun. NASA scientists are particularly interested in cataloguing these objects due to impact potential. Currently, there are more than 1,300 potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) about 150 yards across that have a small chance of making an impact. Their orbital paths will take them close to Earth, but there's no guarantee that they'll crash land. But since asteroids move so quickly--about 27,000 to 33,000 miles per hour--relative to Earth, they carry enormous energy.

The new NEOCam could potentially help record these asteroids and seek out one for the capture mission. Designed to observe objects from space, it would be able to scan the comings and goings of NEOs every day without the impediments of cloud cover and daylight.

"Infrared sensors are a powerful tool for discovering, cataloguing and understanding the asteroid population," said Amy Mainzer, co-author of the paper describing the device, in a press release. "When you observe a space rock with infrared, you are seeing its thermal emissions, which can better define the asteroid's size, as well as tell you something about composition."

These details in particular would be important for NASA's potential mission to capture an asteroid. They would have to seek out one that has the right orbit, is the right size and has the right composition for capture. After finding the asteroid, the scientists would launch a probe into space with an existing launch vehicle, such as an Atlas V rocket. It would then travel to the asteroid and snag it before transporting it to the second Earth-Moon Lagrange point, where the vagaries of gravity and inertia would keep the space object at a roughly consistent position, according to Arstechnica. This would allow researchers to examine the asteroid and even conduct space walks around it.

Although there's quite a bit of potential for this device, it still has to be put through its paces. NASA scientists are continuing to test NEOCam before they officially launch it into space.

The details of this device are published in the Journal of Optical Engineering.