NASA NEO surveyor: All about the mission set up to prevent mass extinction on Earth

Theoretically, about 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometre-wide asteroid struck Earth, which resulted in the extinction of dinosaurs and almost every other species roaming our planet. While there are no signs of a potential asteroid impact now, scientists have not ruled out the possibility of the next-mass extinction event.

In order to at least be prepared for an impact, NASA is planning to launch its NEO (Near-Earth Object) Surveyor mission that would monitor every asteroid bigger than 140 metres (460 feet).

How would the NEO surveyor help protect the Earth?

Under this mission, NASA plans to deploy a space telescope to advance planetary defense efforts. The mission would also help to discover and characterise most of the potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that come within 48 million kilometres of the Earth’s orbit.

According to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), the NEO Surveyor observatory consists of just a single instrument, which is a 20-inch diameter telescope that operates in two heat-sensing infrared wavelengths. This feature of the telescope makes it capable of detecting both bright and dark asteroids, the type which is most difficult to find.

Expected to launch no earlier than 2028, the telescope will carry out a survey for the next five years to find at least two-thirds of the near-Earth objects larger than 140 metres. NASA has set this limitation for the size because objects of similar measurements are enough to cause wide-scale destruction if they struck Earth. During the survey, the NEO Surveyor will make accurate measurements of the space rocks and determine their composition, shapes, rotational states and orbits.

"In five years of survey operation, NEO Surveyor is designed to make significant progress toward meeting the U.S. Congress's mandate to NASA to find more than 90 percent of all NEOs larger than 140 meters in diameter", JPL said in a statement.

Notably, this is not the first mission NASA is working on to develop a defense system for Earth. In November last year, NASA launched the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission toward an asteroid system located 11 million kilometres from Earth.

Under this mission, NASA is testing if ramming a spacecraft could change the trajectory of an asteroid. If the idea is successful, the concept might be applied to save our planet from another mass extinction.