蜜芽传媒

For the first time, an asteroid alert system will be able to scan the entire sky 24 hours a day for dangerous extra-terrestrial activities. It's called Atlas - the Asteroid Terrestrial-Impact Last Alert System.

Nasa recently upgraded their asteroid monitoring system as part of their mission to detect and warn officials of incoming asteroids that could potentially hit Earth.

Atlas uses four telescopes which are based in South Africa, Chile, and Hawaii.

Professor John Tonry at the Hawaii Institute for Astronomy is the Principal Investigator, he says "Asteroids can be devastating for an impact, and we can predict it exactly, we can find them, we can predict it, and we can do something about it, and so that's what we trying to do."

(Photograph Credit: Cretaceous tertiary impact Artwork Photography: Science Photo Library/Joe Tucciarone)