How the Green Bank Telescope’s ngRADAR System is Helping to Protect Earth from Asteroids
The Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia has developed a new radar system, called the Next Generation Radar (ngRADAR), which provides more detailed astronomical radar capabilities than ever before.
The Green Bank Telescope has a 100-meter-diameter dish and is the largest steerable antenna on Earth, which makes it uniquely suited for detecting near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and observing the moon.
The ngRADAR system uses the Green Bank Telescope as a huge transmitting antenna, and it uses the Very Long Baseline Array of radio telescopes spread across the U.S., Hawaii, and the Virgin Islands as a miles-wide receiver.
The technological innovation arrived shortly before a two-foot wide, nearly 1,000-pound meteor crashed in South Texas in February 2023, causing windows to rattle and creating an earthquake-like shake as it hit the ground.
The ngRADAR team turned toward the moon to test the new system, imaging an Apollo landing site and the prominent Tycho Crater, revealing meter-sized features and providing the highest-resolution images ever taken of the moon from a ground-based system.
The new instrument transmits via the Ku band, a higher frequency of radio waves than used by other planetary radars, providing new details on surface characterization, such as rock sizes, geology, and density.
By providing various aspects of an asteroid’s characterization, scientists can better determine the potential impact-hazard, including the size, shape, structure, composition, rotation size, and natural satellites of an asteroid.
The ngRADAR system helps to fill the gap left by the collapse of the Arecibo Observatory, which leaves planetary defense and radio astronomy in a precarious position.
Tracking asteroids is crucial for humanity, and the highly detailed observations provided by the ngRADAR system are likely to be of great interest to lunar scientists, as well as providing a crucial planetary defense capability.
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