{"id":14754,"date":"2026-08-05T12:00:59","date_gmt":"2026-08-05T12:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/?p=14754"},"modified":"2026-08-05T12:00:59","modified_gmt":"2026-08-05T12:00:59","slug":"nasas-new-dark-energy-space-telescope-can-also-detect-killer-asteroids","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.theck1.no\/?p=14754","title":{"rendered":"NASA\u2019s new dark energy space telescope can also detect killer asteroids"},"content":{"rendered":"
\nRobin George Andrews<\/strong>
\n •
\nAugust 5, 2026\n<\/div>\n\n
<\/div>\n

At the end of August, NASA is set to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its quest is to help us better understand how the universe works, from the glue-like dark matter that keeps galaxies together to the elusive dark energy that drives the expansion of the cosmos. But Roman could also serve another purpose: defending Earth from killer asteroids. In September, a multi-institutional team of planetary scientists and astronomers will outline<\/a> how the space telescope is uniquely placed to scan asteroids, and provide information about their trajectories, sizes and compositions.<\/p>\n

Roman, named after NASA\u2019s first chief astronomer, is equipped with a super-wide-angle, 300-megapixel infrared camera, allowing it to see a large patch of space at any one time\u2014roughly 100 times larger than the Hubble Space Telescope. That will allow it to discover thousands of new planets, tens of thousands of exploding stars, and survey over one billion galaxies in remarkable detail.<\/p>\n

While doing so, it\u2019ll be looking \u2018through\u2019 our solar system, and this is what makes it uniquely well-placed to spot asteroids. <\/p>\n

A planetary defense pivot<\/h3>\n

Roman was not built for this purpose, but last summer, it was (once again<\/a>) threatened with significant funding cuts by the Trump administration<\/a>. \u201cMy colleague Rick Cosentino<\/a> [a planetary scientist at NASA] said to me in July 2025 that we need to show what Roman can do for planetary defense as a way to further increase the visibility of the mission with lawmakers and taxpayers,\u201d says Bryan Holler<\/a>, a researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Maryland.<\/p>\n

Holler and his colleagues\u2019 proposal<\/a>, which will be presented at the Europlanet Science Congress at The Hague in The Netherlands, reveals that Roman\u2019s epic field-of-view and infrared vision allows it to spot small asteroids up to 60 feet long. This is comparable to the asteroid that exploded above the Russian city of Chelyabinsk<\/a> in 2013, unleashing the force of 500,000 tons of TNT and sending 1,500 people to the hospital. <\/p>\n

Roman\u2019s software will need some tweaking to spy space rocks. The telescope, as designed, will see through \u2013 and beyond \u2013 the solar system in order to gather the clearest possible pictures of the rest of the universe. \u201cStreaks, whether caused by cosmic rays or glitches or asteroids, are caught by the software and discarded,\u201d says Andy Rivkin<\/a>, a planetary scientist and planetary defense researcher at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. But astronomers could go in, study those streaks and pick out those they identify as asteroids.<\/p>\n

Even with those potential adjustments, Roman won\u2019t be an asteroid-finding wunderkind on its own. Its strength lies in complementing the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), another observatory that\u2019s built to peer at galaxies and stars at the far reaches of the universe. It can also intensely focus on a single asteroid, when needed\u2014as it did last year, playing a key role in tracking 2024 YR4, which was briefly the most dangerous asteroid<\/a> ever discovered. \u201cBut Roman\u2019s field of view is much<\/em> bigger,\u201d says Rivkin. <\/p>\n

That means it could look at multiple questionable asteroids very quickly. \u201cRoman can provide infrared observations of more asteroids than JWST could hope to observe in a reasonable amount of observing time,\u201d says Holler.<\/p>\n

If those asteroids are found to be benign travelers, we can relax. But if they might collide with Earth, other telescopes\u2014including JWST\u2014can follow up from Roman\u2019s observations. Those observations could give experts the information they need to assess the likely damage of an upcoming asteroid strike\u2014or to launch a mission to attempt to swat an asteroid away.<\/p>\n

\u201cRoman will sample such a large volume of the cosmos that we\u2019ve long known it will offer vast opportunities for a range of additional science,\u201d says Alise Fisher<\/a>, the astrophysics communications lead at NASA Headquarters in Washington D.C. <\/p>\n

NASA\u2019s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, and its partners across the world, are chiefly worried about asteroids 460 feet long and larger. Around 25,000 of those are estimated to have near-Earth orbits, and just over half have yet to be found. Should one hit a city, much of it would be destroyed or irreversibly damaged in a heartbeat. Astronomers estimate that there are also 230,000 or so 165-foot-long asteroids orbiting close to Earth, and less than 10 percent have been located. One of those striking a city may not annihilate it, but it would unleash a force comparable to a large atomic bomb, albeit without the radiation. <\/p>\n

These sorts of asteroids could theoretically be deflected<\/a> (by ramming a spacecraft into it) or vaporized<\/a> (perhaps using a nuclear weapon). But planetary defenders need to know where they are first, which is why NASA funds a network of ground-based telescopes<\/a> designed to seek them out. They work well, but there\u2019s only so much of the night sky they can see, and Earth\u2019s atmosphere peskily gets in their way.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why NASA\u2019s launching the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor<\/a> space telescope in 2027. By positioning itself between Earth and the Sun, it\u2019ll find many elusive asteroids that ground based telescopes cannot see. And unlike many of its asteroid-seeking cousins, it\u2019ll see in infrared, not visible light. Asteroids not only show up more clearly in infrared, but seeing them through this lens gives scientists a considerably better measure of their size. In a matter of years, it could find 90 percent of the city killer-size asteroids in near-Earth orbits.<\/p>\n

Telescope teamwork<\/h3>\n

NEO Surveyor is explicitly a planetary defense observatory. But it\u2019ll work with other telescopes with more science-minded missions, including Roman, JWST\u2014both of which conveniently have infrared scopes too\u2014and the Vera Rubin Observatory<\/a>, which just began its 10-year survey of the entire night sky from atop a mountain in Chile. As part of its inventorying of the cosmos, it\u2019s expected to discover 89,000 near-Earth asteroids<\/a>. <\/p>\n

Here\u2019s how they might all work together. Say NEO Surveyor spies an asteroid that, based on a few observations, has a chance of impacting Earth. Then it finds five more just like it. There is a lot of uncertainty about their orbits based on those initial observations. Roman, with its huge field-of-view, could be commanded to look at the corner of the night sky that includes all those asteroids, and in a matter of days it could improve the precision of those orbits by several orders of magnitude.<\/p>\n

Roman also occupies a different part of space to both NEO Surveyor and the Rubin observatory. \u201cThose slightly different viewing angles will also help narrow orbits down more quickly than if all objects were looking from the same place,\u201d says Holler.<\/p>\n

Perhaps five of those potentially hazardous asteroids are found to stand no chance of colliding with Earth for the foreseeable future. One, however, might not be able to be ruled out\u2014and that\u2019s when other telescopes, including JWST, could be asked to track it down and study it further.<\/p>\n

\u201cTelescope resources, whether in space or on the ground, are typically oversubscribed and will not be available to follow up on all [near-Earth asteroids] with a non-zero impact probability when they are first discovered,\u201d says Holler. Roman, then, will help scientists \u201cmake sure we follow-up on the correct targets.\u201d<\/p>\n

Roman\u2019s infrared scope also allows it to offer a decent estimate of an asteroid\u2019s size, and can even tell whether it\u2019s a stony rock, a puffy and watery carbon-rich rock, or a metallic one. \u201cThis in turn provides strong clues to the composition and thereby the density and mass of the asteroid, which are important when estimating the impact damage or, less ghoulishly, the effort required to nudge it out of its current orbit,\u201d says Holler.<\/p>\n

Roman won\u2019t play the lead role in protecting Earth in the way NEO Surveyor will. But while it\u2019s seeking out supernovas and planets scooting around other stars, it will also be doing its part to protect all eight billion of us from a cosmic catastrophe.<\/p>\n

Read the full article →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Robin George Andrews • August 5, 2026 At the end of August, NASA is set to launch the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope from Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Its quest is to help us better understand how the universe works, from the glue-like dark matter that keeps galaxies together to the elusive dark energy<\/p>\n

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