We only have two telescopes on Earth that are devoted to detecting asteroids and comets. H?

Question

Then how would we detect any commets and asteroids in time? Because it's impossible for two telescopes to look in the right place at the right time all of the time.

Answer 1

There are quite a number of survey telescopes devoted to asteroid searches (and which also find comets.)

The Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) survey uses 2 1.0 m telescopes of the same design as those used by the US military to track space junk.

The Spacewatch program uses a 0.9 m scope and a 1.8 m scope.

The Catalina Survey uses a 0.68 m Schmidt telescope, its sister the Mt Lemmon Survey uses a 1.5 m telescope and their southern partner the Siding Spring Survey uses a 0.5 m Schmidt telescope.

The Lowell Observatory Near Earth Object Survey (LONEOS) uses a 0.6 m Schmidt telescope.

The Near Earth Asteroid Tracking Survey (NEAT) shares the 1.2 m Palomar Oschin Schmidt telescope with Mike Brown's deep solar system survey that is finding lots of Kuiper Belt objects.

There's also the Lulin Survey in China (a 0.4 m RC scope.)

There are also many amateurs with 0.3 to 0.4 m scopes doing asteroid work, even some with larger equipment in the 0.6 to 0.7 m range.

There are also programs that use time on scopes such as the 2 m Faulkes telescopes.

PanSTARRS and LSST are on the drawing boards (well in the case of PanSTARRS there is actually a prototype telescope running now) and would dominate the survey scene should they come on line.

The discovery rate of asteroids has jumped markedly in the last 10 years because of the efforts of these surveys.

Answer 2

The world is also full of amateurs who devote much time to looking for comets at least, although an approaching comet comes very fast. Asteroids are a different matter; they're in orbits that can be predicted, by and large.

Answer 3

Many amateur astronomers dedicate their observing time to looking for comets and asteroids. In fact, many famous comets have been found by them.

But you're right, it's impossible to look in the right place all the time, and sometimes we only see potentially dangerous objects as they are moving away from us.

Answer 4

I personally know of more than that involved in the SpaceWatch program. And the new LSST will be surveying the entire sky every 3 nights and looking for new objects, so we should detect anything big enough to cause serious damage well ahead of time.

Answer 5

There are more than 2. And they are computer controlled, doing their searches automatically. No person or team of people could ever keep up with the work load manually.