MOSCOW, Nov 25, 2019 (BSS/TASS) – Russia’s State Space Corporation
Roscosmos plans to place telescopes on its future lunar base in the southern
pole of the Earth’s natural satellite to monitor dangerous asteroids and
comets, Roscosmos Executive Director for Science and Long-Term Programs
Alexander Bloshenko told TASS on Monday.
“There are plans to install equipment on this [lunar] base to study deep
space and special telescopes to track asteroids and comets that pose a danger
of their collision with Earth,” he said.
The telescopes on the Moon together with the satellites at the Lagrangian
points of the Sun-Earth system are set to make up the global system of
monitoring asteroid and comet dangers. The system will track potentially
dangerous objects against the Sun’s background and in deep space, the
scientist said.
As Bloshenko told TASS on Friday, in early November the Russian observation
equipment spotted a new asteroid comparable by its size with the Chelyabinsk
meteorite that had entered the Earth’s atmosphere in 2013. The new celestial
body passed relatively close to the planet: at a distance of about 140,000
km.
In 2016, Russia set up its automated system of warning about dangerous
situations in near-Earth space. It embraces optical-electronic stations on
the territory of Russia and outside it: in Armenia and Brazil. Today this
system basically monitors objects in near-the-Earth space, particularly
tracking space debris and ensuring the safety of satellites’ movement.