Chilean engineers and astronomers install the ATLAS telescope at the EL Sauce observatory. Photo: El Sauce Observatory

The advanced asteroid warning system operated by the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii (IfA) can now scan the entire night sky 24 hours a day, looking for celestial bodies that threaten Earth.

The NASA-sponsored Last Asteroid Impact Alert System (ATLAS) has extended coverage to the southern hemisphere, adding to the two existing telescopes already observing the northern one from the summits of Haleakala and Maunaloa volcanoes. The installation of the new complexes is complete, and two additional eyes are already staring at the sky.

"An asteroid threatening Earth could come at any moment from any direction, so ATLAS is now watching the entire sky, all the time." said John Tonri, Professor at IfA and Scientific Director of the ATLAS project.

The new telescopes are located at an observation station in South Africa and at the El Sauce Observatory in Chile. These places were chosen not only for the accessibility of the southern part of the sky, but also for their time difference with Hawaii - from here you can watch the night sky when it is daytime in Hawaii.

The ATLAS system, which now includes four complexes, is the first dangerous asteroid warning system capable of viewing the entire night sky 24 hours. These relatively modest telescopes are capable of capturing an area of ​​the sky 100 times the size of the full moon in one exposure.

Mounting the telescope at the ATLAS station in Sutherland, South Africa. Photo: Willie Koorts (SAAO)

The ATLAS system will have time to warn humanity in a day about the approach of a 20-meter asteroid, which can lead to the destruction of one average city. Since larger bodies can be detected earlier, in the case of a 100-meter block, we will have three weeks to respond. By the way, such an asteroid is capable of causing consequences 10 times larger than the recent eruption of the Hunga Tonga volcano.

University of Hawaii staff installed the first two ATLAS telescopes in Hawaii as part of funding received in 2013 from NASA's Near-Earth Object Observation Program, now part of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office. These two facilities, located on the Haleakala and Mauna Loa volcanoes, were put into full operation in 2017.

The first light and the first discovery in the southern hemisphere

After several years of successful work in Hawaii, IfA requested additional funding from NASA to build two telescopes in the southern hemisphere. When looking for partners to host these telescopes, IfA chose the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) and an inter-institutional association in Chile. The presence of ATLAS further enhances the already significant astronomical opportunities in both countries.

ATLAS on Haleakala, Maui. Photo: Henry Weiland

ATLAS on Mauna Loa, Hawaiian Islands. Photo: University of Hawaii

Despite delays caused by travel restrictions due to the pandemic and supply chain disruptions, the ATLAS team at the University of Hawaii led the assembly of the telescopes remotely with international participants in South Africa and Chile. In South Africa, the installation was carried out by SAAO, and in Chile, the team consisted of several partners, including the Millennium Astrophysics Institute (MAS) and Obstech, which runs the El Sauce observatory.

On January 22, the Sutherland-based ATLAS system detected its first near-Earth object, 2022 BK, which was a 100-meter asteroid that currently does not threaten the planet. In total, the system has so far detected more than 700 near-Earth asteroids and 66 comets, including 2019 MO and 2018 LA, two very small bodies that eventually hit Earth. ATLAS is designed specifically to detect objects flying close to our planet - closer than the distance to the moon, which is approximately 384,000 kilometers.

The new telescopes will join existing ground-based observations as well as other near-Earth object detection systems still in development. As Larry Denno, IfA astronomer and assistant scientific director of the ATLAS project, says:

“It's good that hunting for near-Earth objects is a global effort, and the enhanced ATLAS system complements existing ground-based search programs, namely Pan-STARRS at the top of the Muana Kea volcano and the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Arizona. Each of these systems has its own specialization, and together they work to protect us from dangerous asteroids that may suddenly appear both today and in the future.

News translation: Expanded UH asteroid tracking system can monitor the entire sky

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