These Lunar Telescopes Can Warn Us Of Incoming Asteroids That May Collide With Earth

Aadhya Khatri - Dec 04, 2019


These Lunar Telescopes Can Warn Us Of Incoming Asteroids That May Collide With Earth

Roscosmos plans to equip the Moon base with instruments to further study space and telescopes to identify comets and asteroids that may collide with Earth

As the first country to set foot on space, there is no way Russia leaves other nations like the U.S, India, Japan, China, and Japan outrun it in space travel. Recently, Roscosmos, the country’s space agency announced its plan to set up a lunar observatory.

What they are going to do is to put telescopes on the south pole of our Moon so that we have heads-up about upcoming comets and asteroids.

According to Alexander Bloshenko, Science and Long-Term Programs of Roscosmos, the agency plans to equip the lunar base with instruments to further study space as well as telescopes to identify incoming comets and asteroids that may collide with Earth.

Russia Moon Plan 3

Concerns over asteroid collision are also troubling the ESA (short for European Space Agency). It is running Hera, an unmanned spacecraft designed to protect our planet from such threats. Earlier this year, NASA also arranged a meeting to discuss what we should do in case of an asteroid impact.

The lunar telescopes will work in accordance with their land-based counterparts to track dangerous space objects. Russia has already developed its own warning system working to notify us of the potential threats when alien objects get too close to our planet. With the lunar-based telescope system, it appears that the country is looking to gather more data by adding more hardware.

Apart from keeping people on Earth safe of asteroid threats, the system also keeps an eye on debris that may compromise the work of our existing satellites.

Russia is quite vocal about what it intends to do next. One of the plans is to 3D-print a base on the Moon. The machine will use the dust on the Moon to create equipment and objects. This plan is expected to be executed in 2040.

Roscosmos and ESA are working together on some missions involving the Moon. What they expect to accomplish are one orbiter and three landers to be launched in 2021.

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