Content overview: “NASA’s NEO Surveyor Sunshade: 20-Foot Shield to Protect Asteroid-Hunting Telescope”. A newly released NASA image shows a technician inspecting the massive sunshade for the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission, a critical component that will keep the spacecraft’s infrared telescope cool. Standing 20 feet (6 meters) tall and 8 feet (2.4 meters) wide at its base, this sunshade is d
Standing 20 feet (6 meters) tall and 8 feet (2.4 meters) wide at its base, this sunshade is designed to block heat from the Sun, allowing the telescope to operate at extremely low temperatures needed to detect the faint infrared signatures of asteroids that might otherwise go unnoticed. The NEO Surveyor, scheduled for launch in the coming years, is a dedicated space telescope that will hunt for potentially hazardous asteroids and comets, building on the work of previous missions like NEOWISE. For the complete material, the listing points back to the source inside the network.