• Education
    • Higher Education
    • Scholarships & Grants
    • Online Learning
    • School Reforms
    • Research & Innovation
  • Lifestyle
    • Travel
    • Food & Drink
    • Fashion & Beauty
    • Home & Living
    • Relationships & Family
  • Technology & Startups
    • Software & Apps
    • Startup Success Stories
    • Startups & Innovations
    • Tech Regulations
    • Venture Capital
    • Artificial Intelligence
    • Cybersecurity
    • Emerging Technologies
    • Gadgets & Devices
    • Industry Analysis
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy
Today Headline
  • Home
  • World News
    • Us & Canada
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Middle East
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Political Parties
    • Government Policies
    • International Relations
    • Legislative News
  • Business & Finance
    • Market Trends
    • Stock Market
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Corporate News
    • Economic Policies
  • Science & Environment
    • Space Exploration
    • Climate Change
    • Wildlife & Conservation
    • Environmental Policies
    • Medical Research
  • Health
    • Public Health
    • Mental Health
    • Medical Breakthroughs
    • Fitness & Nutrition
    • Pandemic Updates
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Basketball
    • Tennis
    • Olympics
    • Motorsport
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV & Streaming
    • Celebrity News
    • Awards & Festivals
  • Crime & Justice
    • Court Cases
    • Cybercrime
    • Policing
    • Criminal Investigations
    • Legal Reforms
No Result
View All Result
  • Home
  • World News
    • Us & Canada
    • Europe
    • Asia
    • Africa
    • Middle East
  • Politics
    • Elections
    • Political Parties
    • Government Policies
    • International Relations
    • Legislative News
  • Business & Finance
    • Market Trends
    • Stock Market
    • Entrepreneurship
    • Corporate News
    • Economic Policies
  • Science & Environment
    • Space Exploration
    • Climate Change
    • Wildlife & Conservation
    • Environmental Policies
    • Medical Research
  • Health
    • Public Health
    • Mental Health
    • Medical Breakthroughs
    • Fitness & Nutrition
    • Pandemic Updates
  • Sports
    • Football
    • Basketball
    • Tennis
    • Olympics
    • Motorsport
  • Entertainment
    • Movies
    • Music
    • TV & Streaming
    • Celebrity News
    • Awards & Festivals
  • Crime & Justice
    • Court Cases
    • Cybercrime
    • Policing
    • Criminal Investigations
    • Legal Reforms
No Result
View All Result
Today Headline
No Result
View All Result
Home Science & Environment Space Exploration

Solar farms could help find dangerous asteroids, scientist says

August 5, 2025
in Space Exploration
Reading Time: 3 mins read
A A
0
Solar farms could help find dangerous asteroids, scientist says
6
SHARES
12
VIEWS
Share on FacebookShare on Twitter

Under a dark, star-streaked sky, scientists at the Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico are deploying an unconventional tool for planetary defense: heliostats.

“A heliostat is a very large — several meters on edge — motorized mirror that concentrates sunlight on a tower, like a giant magnifying glass,” Sandia scientist John Sandusky told Space.com. “As the sun moves across the sky, the heliostat changes orientation to hold the sun’s reflection fixed.

“During [the day], sunlight concentrated by the many heliostats boils water or melts salt to power electrical generators,” he continued. “The generators collectively produce hundreds of megawatts of electricity for the power grid.”


You may like

But, as he pointed out, heliostats don’t have a job at night. After sunset, these vast fields of mirrors remain idle, covering acres of land but serving no purpose. “They just sit there unused,” Sandusky said in a previous statement.

He proposes repurposing them to help find asteroids that might threaten Earth. “The heliostats work just as well in the dark,” he explained to Space.com, “concentrating starlight at night the same way they concentrate sunlight during the day. Whereas sunlight boils water for the electrical grid, starlight generates a mere trickle of electricity on large photodiodes that are like the cells of a solar panel.”

The sheer number of heliostats already available in the U.S. sparked the idea to use them for asteroid detection at night. Dim objects — like small asteroids near Earth or large ones farther away — require more light collection to spot. Rather than letting these mirrors sit idle, the plan is to put them to productive use with minimal added cost.

“[It’s a] potentially cheap opportunity to use what we already have,” Sandusky said. “Initially, it’ll just be a new tool, an augmentation to the existing toolbelt of astronomical observatories. But ultimately, it should scale least expensively to the smallest or more distant asteroids.”

Breaking space news, the latest updates on rocket launches, skywatching events and more!

Hunting asteroids with heliostats works differently from traditional telescope imaging. Instead of creating a picture by mapping where light lands on each sensor (or pixel), the heliostat method skips imaging entirely. It tracks how fast an object moves across the sky and converts that motion into a frequency signal — similar to how radar detects speed.

“It’s like listening to a wind chime instead of hearing the wind blow,” explained Sandusky. “The heliostats sweep gently against the stars, holding a steady rhythm through the night. The flow of light from the stars produces one tone. Light from an asteroid moving along the sweep produces a slightly different tone, because each sweep encounters the asteroid at a slightly different position against the stars.

“The difference in tone will typically be very small — less than one millihertz, [which is] much finer than our ears could distinguish,” he continued. “But thanks to the extreme stability of GPS timing, precision electronics resolve this small difference over the course of a night. The faster the asteroid, the greater the difference in tone.”

Sandusky has already spent summer nights testing his idea using one of the 212 heliostats at Sandia’s National Solar Thermal Test Facility in Albuquerque, though he has not yet attempted to detect any asteroids. So far, the heliostat has been slowly redirected to sweep back and forth across the night sky, tracking stars as a first step in the experiment.

“The current hurdle is funding to demonstrate scaling from one heliostat to many and to reprogram the heliostat controllers to sweep against the stars instead of the horizon,” he said. “To asteroid hunt on a global scale, Earth’s various heliostat fields need synchronization to a common timing standard, like GPS. They must also be outfitted with photodiodes and other necessary optical and electronic devices.”

This will take time, but Sandusky has already presented his initial experimental results and computational simulations at the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers’ 2024 Unconventional Imaging, Sensing, and Adaptive Optics conference in San Diego. “Since this is an unconventional idea, the conference was a good fit,” he said.

“The next step is criticism from the scientific and technical community, responding to the initial publication and identifying problems and limitations,” he continued. “New ideas benefit from critical feedback. In parallel, we seek funding to outfit heliostats and make regular observations. Partnerships are needed to establish theoretical bounds and improve model fidelity.”

The next step, he said, could involve using the heliostat to locate a known planet — an experiment that would help reveal the technology’s capabilities and limitations.

Previous Post

This Physician-Scientist Is Taking on Trump on Behalf of Disadvantaged Communities

Next Post

Sri Lanka stocks close down amidst selling pressure, profit taking todayheadline

Related Posts

Space BD and Gilmour Space to partner on launch and satellite services

Virgin Galactic slips schedule for commercial spaceplane service

August 7, 2025
7
SpaceX to launch 24 Amazon Project Kuiper satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral – Spaceflight Now

SpaceX to launch 24 Amazon Project Kuiper satellites on Falcon 9 rocket from Cape Canaveral – Spaceflight Now

August 7, 2025
7
Next Post

Sri Lanka stocks close down amidst selling pressure, profit taking todayheadline

  • Trending
  • Comments
  • Latest
Family calls for change after B.C. nurse dies by suicide after attacks on the job

Family calls for change after B.C. nurse dies by suicide after attacks on the job

April 2, 2025
Pioneering 3D printing project shares successes

Product reduces TPH levels to non-hazardous status

November 27, 2024

Police ID man who died after Corso Italia fight

December 23, 2024

Hospital Mergers Fail to Deliver Better Care or Lower Costs, Study Finds todayheadline

December 31, 2024
Harris tells supporters 'never give up' and urges peaceful transfer of power

Harris tells supporters ‘never give up’ and urges peaceful transfer of power

0
Des Moines Man Accused Of Shooting Ex-Girlfriend's Mother

Des Moines Man Accused Of Shooting Ex-Girlfriend’s Mother

0

Trump ‘looks forward’ to White House meeting with Biden

0
Catholic voters were critical to Donald Trump’s blowout victory: ‘Harris snubbed us’

Catholic voters were critical to Donald Trump’s blowout victory: ‘Harris snubbed us’

0

OpenAI led a funding round for a startup that will put an AI agent inside Microsoft Excel

August 7, 2025
Trump open to meeting Putin and Zelensky, White House says

Trump open to meeting Putin and Zelensky, White House says

August 7, 2025

Victoria Mboko rallies into Montreal final, will play Naomi Osaka todayheadline

August 7, 2025

Clearfield (CLFD) Q3 Profit Jumps 500% todayheadline

August 7, 2025

Recent News

OpenAI led a funding round for a startup that will put an AI agent inside Microsoft Excel

August 7, 2025
0
Trump open to meeting Putin and Zelensky, White House says

Trump open to meeting Putin and Zelensky, White House says

August 7, 2025
3

Victoria Mboko rallies into Montreal final, will play Naomi Osaka todayheadline

August 7, 2025
5

Clearfield (CLFD) Q3 Profit Jumps 500% todayheadline

August 7, 2025
5

TodayHeadline is a dynamic news website dedicated to delivering up-to-date and comprehensive news coverage from around the globe.

Follow Us

Browse by Category

  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Basketball
  • Business & Finance
  • Climate Change
  • Crime & Justice
  • Cybersecurity
  • Economic Policies
  • Elections
  • Entertainment
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Environmental Policies
  • Europe
  • Football
  • Gadgets & Devices
  • Health
  • Medical Research
  • Mental Health
  • Middle East
  • Motorsport
  • Olympics
  • Politics
  • Public Health
  • Relationships & Family
  • Science & Environment
  • Software & Apps
  • Space Exploration
  • Sports
  • Stock Market
  • Technology & Startups
  • Tennis
  • Travel
  • Uncategorized
  • Us & Canada
  • Wildlife & Conservation
  • World News

Recent News

OpenAI led a funding round for a startup that will put an AI agent inside Microsoft Excel

August 7, 2025
Trump open to meeting Putin and Zelensky, White House says

Trump open to meeting Putin and Zelensky, White House says

August 7, 2025
  • Education
  • Lifestyle
  • Technology & Startups
  • About us
  • Contact
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy

© 2024 Todayheadline.co

Welcome Back!

OR

Login to your account below

Forgotten Password?

Retrieve your password

Please enter your username or email address to reset your password.

Log In
No Result
View All Result
  • Business & Finance
  • Corporate News
  • Economic Policies
  • Entrepreneurship
  • Market Trends
  • Crime & Justice
  • Court Cases
  • Criminal Investigations
  • Cybercrime
  • Legal Reforms
  • Policing
  • Education
  • Higher Education
  • Online Learning
  • Entertainment
  • Awards & Festivals
  • Celebrity News
  • Movies
  • Music
  • Health
  • Fitness & Nutrition
  • Medical Breakthroughs
  • Mental Health
  • Pandemic Updates
  • Lifestyle
  • Fashion & Beauty
  • Food & Drink
  • Home & Living
  • Politics
  • Elections
  • Government Policies
  • International Relations
  • Legislative News
  • Political Parties
  • Africa
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Middle East
  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Cybersecurity
  • Emerging Technologies
  • Gadgets & Devices
  • Industry Analysis
  • Basketball
  • Football
  • Motorsport
  • Olympics
  • Climate Change
  • Environmental Policies
  • Medical Research
  • Science & Environment
  • Space Exploration
  • Wildlife & Conservation
  • Sports
  • Tennis
  • Technology & Startups
  • Software & Apps
  • Startup Success Stories
  • Startups & Innovations
  • Tech Regulations
  • Venture Capital
  • Uncategorized
  • World News
  • Us & Canada
  • Public Health
  • Relationships & Family
  • Travel
  • Research & Innovation
  • Scholarships & Grants
  • School Reforms
  • Stock Market
  • TV & Streaming
  • Advertise with Us
  • Privacy & Policy
  • About us
  • Contact

© 2024 Todayheadline.co