Pic of the Week: Test-Bed Telescope 2

Posted on by onespaceman2000
Source/Credit: Test-Bed Telescope 2 from the ESA.

This week’s photo is from the European Space Agency (ESA) and shows a recently-completed telescope in Chile designed to detect dangerous asteroids. Here is the full story:

Part of the world-wide effort to scan and identify near-Earth objects, the European Space Agency’s Test-Bed Telescope 2 (TBT2), a technology demonstrator hosted at ESO’s La Silla Observatory in Chile, has now started operating. Working alongside its northern-hemisphere partner telescope, TBT2 will keep a close eye on the sky for asteroids that could pose a risk to Earth, testing hardware and software for a future telescope network.