Suitcase-size Satellite to Patrol for Dangerous Asteroids

Earth received a wake-up call last week with a double shot of incoming space rocks—the near miss of asteroid DA14 and the Russian meteor explosion. Our planet is in a cosmic shooting gallery and more work needs to be done to survey menacing asteroids, astronomers say. Now the Canadian Space Agency is stepping up to the plate to help do just that with the launch of a new sentinel to detect and track near-Earth objects (NEOs). The pint-size space telescope is hitching a ride into orbit aboard an Indian rocket on February 25. Even though the Near-Earth Object Space Surveillance Satellite (NEOSSat) might find it challenging to hunt down relatively smaller size meteors... More

(Source: National Geographic - Feb 22)