NEW TELESCOPE WILL HUNT DANGEROUS ASTEROIDS

by Curious, Tuesday, August 01, 2006, 18:28

Pan-STARRS -- the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System -- is an innovative design for a wide-field imaging facility being developed at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy.

By combining relatively small mirrors with very large digital cameras we will be able to develop and deploy an economical observing system that will be able to observe the entire available sky several times each month.

The immediate goal of Pan-STARRS is to discover and characterize Earth-approaching objects, both asteroids & comets, that might pose a danger to our planet.

The huge volume of images produced by this system will provide valuable data for many other kinds of scientific programs.

*SNIP*

http://pan-starrs.ifa.hawaii.edu/public/