The island of Sicily off the coast of southern Italy will soon be home to a brand new telescope; one that's scouring the skies not to look at distant stars and galaxies, but to protect planet Earth from potential danger.
Flyeye is the European Space Agency’s newest planetary defender.
This telescope, whose optics were inspired by an insect's eye, has just seen its 'first light', a milestone for any telescope, big or small, when it takes its first look at the night sky.
More on planet defence
In the case of Flyeye, the telescope has begun its journey scanning the heavens for near-Earth asteroids and comets.
But this telescope is operating autonomously.
Flyeye is designed to work all night, every night, completely on its own, spotting threats to Earth from deep space before they hit us.
A telescope with a thousand eyes
Flyeye doesn’t look like your typical telescope.
It was built by the European Space Agency in collaboration with Italian aerospace company OHB Italia, and its optics are based on the 'compound' eyes of insects.
Just as a fly’s eye is made up of many tiny lenses to capture a broad view of its surroundings, Flyeye splits incoming light into 16 separate channels, each monitored by its own camera.
This produces a gigantic field of view, over 200 times larger than the full Moon appears the night sky.
"The unique optical design of the Flyeye telescope is optimised for conducting large sky surveys while maintaining high image quality throughout the wide field of view," says Roberto Aceti, Managing Director at OHB Italia.
"The telescope is equipped with a one metre primary mirror, which efficiently captures incoming light.
"This light is then divided into 16 separate channels, each equipped with a camera capable of detecting very faint objects. This enables simultaneous high-sensitivity observations over a large region of the sky."
Eyes on the skies for Earth's protection
Flyeye's specialty is near-Earth objects (NEOs): asteroids or comets that orbit close to our planet and have the potential for a close pass, or worse.
Space is vast and the odds of a big asteroid hitting Earth are small, but as we know from the fate of the dinosaurs, it can't be ruled out.
ESA's Planetary Defence Office and the Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre (NEOCC) are tasked with spotting space rocks long before they pose a threat.
"The earlier we spot potentially hazardous asteroids, the more time we have to assess them and, if necessary, prepare a response," says Richard Moissl, Head of ESA’s Planetary Defence Office.
"ESA’s Flyeye telescopes will be an early-warning system, and their discoveries will be shared with the global planetary defence community."
How Flyeye works
Flyeye will perform autonomous nightly sky surveys working to an observing schedule that factors in moonlight, atmospheric clarity and the work of the NASA-funded ATLAS telescopes, the Zwicky Transient Facility and the Vera Rubin Telescope.
When it detects something suspicious, Flyeye will send the data to ESA’s NEOCC for verification.
If confirmed, the discovery is then passed on to the Minor Planet Center astronomers to follow up and determine if the object is truly a threat to Earth.
Flyeye first light
Flyeye's first light was performed in May 2025 at the Space Geodesy Centre of the Italian Space Agency (ASI), near the ancient city of Matera.
This was before being relocated to Monte Mufara, a remote mountain in Sicily, where the telescope will be permanently installed.
There, high altitude and dark skies make it an ideal site for clear views of the cosmos.
"In the future, a network of up to four Flyeye telescopes spread across the northern and southern hemispheres will work together to further improve the speed and completeness these automatic sky surveys and to reduce the dependence on good weather at any individual site," says ESA's Ernesto Doelling, Flyeye Project Manager.
Asteroid impacts often feature in science fiction, but real scientists are constantly keeping an eye out for any real threats to Earth, and the technology invested in this pursuit is improving all the time.
With its compound vision and autonomous operation, Flyeye could be a turning point for planetary defence.
Next time you look up at the night sky, remember somewhere on the island of Sicily, a robot telescope is keeping watch for all of us.
