The work, which is described in the journal Nature, actually draws on observations made by several astronomical facilities, including the Keck and James Clerk Maxwell telescopes in Hawaii and the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit around the Earth.

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Telescopes, including those in space, have revealed more than 100 planets in the last decade alone.

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Yeomans and colleagues are using telescopes on the ground and in space to nail down the precise orbit of objects that might threaten Earth and predict whether the planet could be hit.

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In the past only space-based telescopes could manage this trick and they are ludicrously expensive.

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It does not experience, for example, the big swings in temperature and light endured by space telescopes positioned much closer to Earth.

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Chimera architecture removes those boundaries by providing the power to conduct nearly 100 billion mathematical operations per second to perform image processing, using computational techniques used in X-ray CT scanners, deep space telescopes and spy satellites.

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Space telescopes are nothing new, of course, and several more are in the works (see article).

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When we talk about telescopes, we're usually referring to devices that "see" the visual spectrum of light, but astronomers also build telescopes that gather radiation like radio waves and X rays in order to peer deep into outer space.

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With ALMA set to begin scientific work in the next few years, astronomers are already looking forward to further new telescopes opening up space to ever more detailed examination, Richer said.

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