Progress is being made on a Spaceguard-style system to watch the skies for dangerous asteroids:
Until now, these efforts have been carried out with existing telescopes, and researchers think they have found about three-quarters of the 1,000 or so neighbouring asteroids that have a civilisation-wrecking diameter of 1km or more. But to locate the rest, and to look for smaller objects that could still wreak local devastation, they need more specialised tools.
This month they will start to get them. On December 6th the University of Hawaii will activate a telescope designed specifically to look for dangerous asteroids. It is called PS1, a contraction of Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System, and it is the first of four such instruments that will be used to catalogue as many as possible of the 100,000 or so near-Earth asteroids that measure between 140 metres and a kilometre across. . .
The other three telescopes should be completed by 2012, at a cost of about $100m for all four. They should take about ten years to catalogue 90% of the remaining dangerous asteroids thought to be out there.
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