Watch comets, asteroids LIVE in our galaxy, courtesy NASA; here is how to

New NASA tool will allow you to watch comets, asteroids or other near-earth objects in our neighborhood live. Here’s how you can do it.

NASA tool dubbed 'Eyes on Asteroids' is updated twice daily with the most recent data. (NASA)

The US space agency National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has rolled out a new 3-D real time visualization tool, named Eyes on Asteroids, which will allow you to explore the near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids and comets approaching near the Earth as well as the inner solar system. You can access NASA's ‘Eyes on Asteroids' which can provide data even on your smartphones, tablets, or computer with just the use of an internet connection without the need to download anything. Check the link for ‘Eyes on Asteroids' here. https://eyes.nasa.gov/apps/asteroids/#/asteroids.

“We wanted Eyes on Asteroids to be as user-friendly as possible while telling the stories about humanity's exploration of these fascinating objects.. Every NEO can be found inside the app, as can most of the spacecraft that have visited these objects," Jason Craig, the technical producer in NASA said in the blogpost of the space agency.

Every year, thousands of asteroids and dozens of comets are discovered, with some of them known as near-Earth objects (NEOs) orbiting the inner solar system. These NEOs, that already number around 28,000 and are rising day by day, are being closely monitored by NASA-funded astronomers in case any represent a threat to our planet.

How the NASA Eyes on Asteroids tool works?

Once you visit the portal of 'Eyes on Asteroids', then you can watch the orbital motions of asteroids by moving the slider at the bottom of the screen swiftly forward and backward in time. The display is updated twice daily with the most recent data, so new objects are added to the programme as soon as they are identified and their orbits are calculated. To observe the asteroids, choose the option “Asteroid Watch” tab where you can see the next five asteroids approaching close to Earth.

You can even see NASA's Earth Observation (NEO) missions profile in it. To see extensive animated models of those spacecraft and their asteroid or comet encounters, go to the "events" tab. Search for NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, for example, to see an animated re-creation of the mission's Touch-And-Go (TAG) sample collection event on October 20, 2020.