China launches new commercial 'asteroid hunter' satellite into space

China launches its new Long March 2D rocket, on-board is a new 'asteroid hunter' satellite that will detect near-Earth asteroids.

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China has just launched its first "asteroid hunter" satellite into space, with the new satellite taking its journey into the black beyond with three other satellites.

Lifting off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center located in north China, the Long March 2D rocket took off with the Yangwang-1 spacecraft at 11:03PM EDT (0303 GMT, or 11:03AM local time, Friday, June 11). Chinese space resources company Origin Space is the company behind the launch, with the satellite being China's first optical space telescope -- capable of collecting visible and ultraviolet light to detect near-Earth asteroids.

Origin Space wants to create a "treasure map" of potential space resources, using the new "asteroid hunter" satellite to scan around using its various sensors and wide field of view to take in all that data. The company launched its NEO-1 satellite in April 2021, designed to release and collect a small target -- chunks of an asteroid.

So there's satellites in space scanning for asteroids and their potentially valuable resources, and other satellites designed to pull small chunks of an asteroid off. I guess the closest person we have to Lex Luthor in terms of looks and finances is Jeff Bezos... who is about to go into space himself come to think of it.

Maybe he's flying up there to get some kryptonite off an asteroid somewhere, and the UFO disclosure stuff is all about Kal-El -- or Superman -- and that he's real.

China launches new commercial 'asteroid hunter' satellite into space 08
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NEWS SOURCE:space.com

Anthony joined the TweakTown team in 2010 and has since reviewed 100s of graphics cards. Anthony is a long time PC enthusiast with a passion of hate for games built around consoles. FPS gaming since the pre-Quake days, where you were insulted if you used a mouse to aim, he has been addicted to gaming and hardware ever since. Working in IT retail for 10 years gave him great experience with custom-built PCs. His addiction to GPU tech is unwavering and has recently taken a keen interest in artificial intelligence (AI) hardware.

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