While monitoring space rocks and related matters has already been done for decades, NASA continues to enhance its approach in monitoring heavenly materials. The process is definitely essential considering that earth-threatening celestial bodies will, one day, put human lives at risk.
At the moment, the space administration is experimenting with a computer project named Scout at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JLP) in California. The program is a space intruder alert system. Data about Near Earth Objects are acquired through various telescopes. Once processed by the system, Scout makes calculations about the dangers of these incoming matters in reference to the Earth's position.
The installation of telescopes around the world is vital to the entire process. The instruments are central to the observation approach considering that celestial bodies are all over the place.
According to Astronomer Paul Chodas, around five asteroids a night are being detected by NASA.
Although there are times wherein a lot of objects are under the radar, NASA systems assess the materials according to behavior, distance, size and other related elements. This is where telescopes become truly significant.
The more of these observation instruments are utilized out there, the better the chances of knowing the risk information a space body unleashes relative to Earth's location.
Davide Farnocchia of NASA's JPL says that it is the objective of Scout to hasten the process in analyzing and confirming data that objects will hit Earth.
Last October 25, the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) in Hawaii has sighted a rock heading towards the third planet from the sun. After acquiring observation details, Scout determines that the object will miss the globe by around 310,000 miles.
Three other telescopes, namely, the Steward Observatory, the Spacewatch and the Tenagra Observatories have all declared that the object, which is around 5 to 25 meters across, will fly past the Earth.
NASA's new intruder alert system is still currently under testing. Reinforcing Scout is another program named Sentry.
