ESA Introduces NEOMIR Mission That Aims To Detect Hazardous Asteroids Outshone by Sun

NASA's DART mission has proven that it is possible to redirect a potentially hazardous asteroid. However, these space rocks are like stars that are only visible at night. Concealed in the glare of the Sun are an unknown number of asteroids on untraceable routes, many of which might be coming toward Earth unknown to its inhabitants.

Now, the European Space Agency's (ESA) proposed NEOMIR mission that will orbit between the Earth and the Sun and serve as an early warning system for asteroids 20 meters or bigger that cannot be observed from Earth.

Lessons From Chelyabinsk Meteor

On February 15, 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor entered the atmosphere above the Ural Mountains in Russia just after daybreak, with a speed of more than 18 km/s (40,000 miles per hour), SciTech Daily reports. Unfortunately, nobody saw the 20-meter (66-foot) asteroid coming,

The very tiny object approached Earth from a very close direction of the Sun, exploding in the atmosphere, causing a shockwave that destroyed hundreds of structures, smashing windows, and wounding around 1500 people from flying glass fragments. It was the biggest asteroid to impact the planet in more than a century.

Based on statistics, asteroids of this size impact Earth once every 50-100 years. Bigger asteroids are significantly less common, but they cause far more harm, such as the one that caused the extinction of dinosaurs hundreds of millions of years ago. The only positive side is that they are considerably easier to spot.

In reality, practically all asteroids greater than 1 km in size have been identified. Despite being common, the detection of small and medium-sized asteroids that are outshone by the Sun's light is quite elusive.

Scientists said that these space rocks may still cause significant damage so warning durations of a few days can be sufficient for local authorities to advise the population to avoid windows or even evacuate a small region.

NEOMIR Mission Explained

ESA's new spacecraft, dubbed NEOMIR (Near-Earth Object Mission in the Infrared), would orbit between the Earth and the Sun at the L1 Lagrange Point, searching for space rocks that would otherwise be lost in the glare of the Sun.

According to Universe Today, the planned NEOMIR mission would be capable of detecting asteroids 20 meters or bigger that cannot be seen from the ground, those that came from the Sun's direction and moving towards Earth.

The spacecraft will be equipped with a half-meter telescope with a large corrected focal plane and the capacity to see in infrared light in the 5-10 micrometer waveband.

ESA said that NEOMIR will monitor a near ring around the Sun where it is hard to see from Earth's telescopes due to the Sun's dazzling glare. Through this, NEOMIR will detect heat released by asteroids that are not washed out by sunlight by performing measurements in the infrared section of the light spectrum.

Moreover, this specific spectrum of thermal radiation is absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, which is why an Earth-based telescope would be ineffective. NEOMIR, as a space-based observatory, will also be able to observe closer to the Sun than scientists can from the ground.

NEOMIR is presently in the early stages of mission development. If all goes well, it will be launched on an Ariane 6-2 rocket in 2030 with a possible collaboration with NASA's NEO Surveyor mission to provide even greater warning of a dangerous asteroid. NEO Surveyor is scheduled to launch in 2026, with the goal of discovering 90% of near-Earth objects larger than 140 meters in diameter.

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