Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System

Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System
Alternative namesATLAS Project
Observatory codeT05 (ATLAS-HKO)
T08 (ATLAS-MLO)
Websitefallingstar.com
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The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) is a robotic astronomical survey and early warning system optimized for detecting smaller near-Earth objects a few weeks to days before they impact Earth.

Funded by NASA, and developed and operated by the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy, the system currently has four 0.5-meter telescopes. Two are located 160 km apart in the Hawaiian islands, at Haleakala (ATLAS-HKO, Observatory code T05) and Mauna Loa (ATLAS-MLO, Observatory code T08) observatories, one is located at the Sutherland Observatory (ATLAS–SAAO, Observatory code M22) in South Africa, and one is at the El Sauce Observatory in Rio Hurtado (Chile) (Observatory code W68).

ATLAS began observations in 2015 with one telescope at Haleakala, and a two-Hawaii-telescopes version became operational in 2017. The project then obtained NASA funding for two additional telescopes in the Southern hemisphere, which became operational in early 2022.[1] Each telescope surveys one quarter of the whole observable sky four times per clear night,[2] and the addition of the two southern telescopes improved ATLAS's four-fold coverage of the observable sky from every two clear nights to nightly, as well as filled its previous blind spot in the far southern sky.[3]

  1. ^ "Expanded UH asteroid tracking system can monitor entire sky". University of Hawaii News. University of Hawaii. 27 January 2022. Retrieved 29 January 2022.
  2. ^ Tonry; et al. (28 March 2018). "ATLAS: A High-Cadence All-Sky Survey System". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 130 (988): 064505. arXiv:1802.00879. Bibcode:2018PASP..130f4505T. doi:10.1088/1538-3873/aabadf. S2CID 59135328. Accessed 2018-04-14.
  3. ^ Watson, Traci (2018-08-14). "Project that spots city-killing asteroids expands to Southern Hemisphere". Nature. Springer Nature Limited. doi:10.1038/d41586-018-05969-2. S2CID 135330315. Retrieved 17 October 2018.