Heliostats could be used to detect asteroids, says researcher

Sandia’s scientist, John Sandusky, thinks that he has found a way to put heliostats, who generally transform solar energy into electricity, to work in darkness.

He proposes that these large mirrors could help find asteroids at night.

“The Heliostat fields have no night work. They are just sitting there.” If we knew in advance that an asteroid arrived and where he could strike, we would have a better chance of preparing and reducing potential damage. “

Most planetary defense efforts use observatory quality telescopes to produce stars images. Within these images, calculation methods identify the streaks, which are asteroids. This process is precise but which takes time, and the construction of new observatories is expensive.

The night experience

As part of a research and development project led by a laboratory, Sandusky spent the summer nights working at the National Solar Thermal Test Facility. He used one of the 212 Heliostats in the field for his experience.

“The solar towers collect a million sun watts,” said Sandusky. “At night, we want to collect a femtowatt, which represents a millionth of a billionth with a power of sunlight which is dispersed asteroids.”

In simpler terms, he thinks that heliostats can measure the speed at which asteroids go through the stars, rather than using conventional imaging methods.

“I try to detect the asteroid by its speed compared to the stars,” said Sandusky.

The heliostat he used was not modernized with new equipment for experience. Sandusky used the existing software to oscillate the direction of Heliostat compared to the stars.

“We changed the direction that the Heliostat was gradually pointing, so it would sweep around once a minute,” said Sandusky.

While the twilight turned to night, Sandusky sat on the solar tower, 200 feet above the ground and used standard optical instruments to detect the light that heliostat concentrated on the solar tower.

“You spend a lot of time waiting. There were about 20 minutes between the collection of data points. I would collect data up to dawn,” said Sandusky. “We have not decided to find asteroids. We have shown that heliostat can be swept in both directions and that it can see stars.”

More advantages

Sandusky said it was technology at an early stage. In addition to being more profitable than building new observatories, this method can offer other advantages.

“This can help American space forced their work to try to find spaceships, especially in the Cislunar area. Orbits near the moon can be difficult to follow on the ground,” he said.

Sandusky presented its conclusions during a conference for the international company for optics and photonics, and an article was published in Unconventional imaging, detection and adaptive optics 2024. At this point, he said, the comments are important.

“We want to hear our peers in optics and in the asteroid hunting community,” said Sandusky. “Getting peers comments offers the possibility of understanding what are the concerns about the operation of this technology.”

He said the next step could involve the use of heliostat to find a known planet, which would help reveal the limits of technology.

“We are looking for opportunities to go from a heliostat to many and try to demonstrate that we can help find objects close to the earth,” said Sandusky. “We also want to demonstrate that we can evolve technology to detect even smaller asteroids.”