These Tiny Telescopes Could Save the Earth from a Deep Impact - 0 views
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Allison Concepcion on 21 Feb 13Space rocks as much as 100 feet wide are estimated to hit a hundred years or so. But, there are rare " killer asteroids" that can wipe out a city the size of Moscow and kill 30,000 in an instant. But the university of Hawaii's new meteor tracking systems come online, we'll be able to forecast meteor strikes as accurately as predicting when a blizzard is coming. This device is known as ATLAS ( Asteroid terrestrial-impact Last Alert System). This device consists of a pair of observatories located about 60 miles apart, each equipped with four, 10-inch telescopes with 100 MP cameras. Together, these observatories would scan the sky 2 times a night. The telescope may be very small but will be sensitive enough to spot and estimate an incoming threat in the exact location and time. This project started since 2012 but got a a jump start with a $5 million grant by NASA.