Purple Mountain Observatory, Chinese Academy of sciences (PMO, CAS) won the second-class science and technology award of Jiangsu province for its project “System Engineering of near Earth Object Survey Telescope” on Feb. 26, 2011.

The project passed achievement appraisal in 2009 by expert group comprising 6 CAS academicians who believe the telescope is currently the most efficient and best-performed one in near earth object observation and optical image survey.

Since its operation in 2007, the telescope has brought about such discoveries as 4 near earth asteroids, 1 unusual asteroid, 1 short period comet and a batch of other new asteroids. It has obtained data for around 400,000 near earth objects and small planets, becoming one of the backbones for near earth object observation in international world, which may rival Sloan Digital Sky Survey, the best observation instrument of the world.

In addition, the telescope has taken images for over 2600 HEO space debris within one week during the international joint observation of two comets, which are targets of space exploration.