NEOMIR Space Telescope Will Detect Asteroids We Can't See From Earth

pcmag.com:

The European Space Agency (ESA) is developing a new space telescope designed to detect asteroids we currently can't see from Earth.

The mission is called Near-Earth Object Mission in the Infra-Red (NEOMIR)(Opens in a new window) and its purpose is to fill a gap in our ability to detect asteroids that are hidden by glare from the Sun. To solve that problem, NEOMIR will take the form of a half-meter space telescope that orbits around the first Lagrange point (L1) between the Sun and Earth.

As the telescope will sit outside of Earth's (distorting) atmosphere and observes in infrared light (in the 5-10 micrometre waveband), it's capable of monitoring a "close ring around the Sun" that we simply can't observe from Earth.

Once deployed, it will be able to spot the heat emitted by asteroids and detect any asteroid 20 meters or larger at least three weeks in advance of it potentially hitting the Earth. As an absolute minimum, NEOMIR would offer three days warning, but the ESA says that's a "worst-case scenario."

Unlike NASA's Neo Surveyor(Opens in a new window) mission which launches in 2026 and is designed to discover 90% of near-Earth objects lager than 140-meters in diameter, NEOMIR will focus on "imminent impactors of any size."

NEOMIR has a long way to go before it's ready to be deployed. Currently classed as in an "early mission study phase," the required detector technologies and associated electronics are still under development. It's hoped that a launch can happen using an Ariane 6-2 rocket at some point in 2030.

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