Astronomers Chart Asteroid Threat

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<b>Astronomers Chart Asteroid Threat</b><br /><br />LINK<br /><br />A team of astronomers has stepped up a project which one day could help to preserve the Earth from annihilation. <br /><br />The team from Queen's University in Belfast is monitoring asteroids in space to see if they are on a collision course with our planet. <br /><br />Their crucial data will be fed into an international programme for protecting the Earth from any future impact. <br /><br />On average 30 to 40 Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) - asteroids or comets moving close to Earth - are found each month. <br /><br /><br />High-performance telescopes <br /><br />More than 3,000 NEOs have now been found so far. <br /><br />The team of astronomers at Queen's will be tracking these objects each week using large high-performance telescopes. <br /><br />The UK Astrometry and Photometry Programme (UKAPP) for Near-Earth Objects, based at the university, is using the Faulkes Telescope North, which is physically located on the Hawaiian island of Maui. <br /><br />At the end of this year they will also start using the twin Faulkes Telescope South at Siding Spring, Australia. <br /><br />The telescopes' mirror size of 2m allows astronomers to see fainter NEOs. <br /><br />Dr Alan Fitzsimmons, Reader in Observational Astrophysics at the university and the project's leader, told the BBC's Good Morning Ulster that it was likely that the Earth would be hit by an asteroid. <br /><br />"In fact, we know that an asteroid will hit us at some point in the future. <br /><br />"Of course, these things are out there and they just randomly hit us when the Earth gets in the way. <br /><br />"However, generally it is not a 24-hour or even a 45-minute warning that we get. It is normally timescales of years or even decades." <br /><br />Dr Fitzsimmons said that his project was acting as an "early, early warning system for the Earth". <br /><br />Earth's atmosphere <br /><</safety_wrapper>