NEW MEXICO (KRQE) — Across the globe, technology that is designed to generate solar energy could potentially be employed for yet another planet-saving enterprise: Asteroid detection. One scientist at Sandia National Labs has started to get the ball rolling on a theory using a large-scale mirror, and a bit of ingenuity and hope.

Sitting just south of Albuquerque is a field of more than 200 large-scale mirrors. These heliostats focus the immense power of the sun on to a 200-foot tower, collecting as much as a million watts of power during the day, but at night, they don't have a job — they're just waiting for the sun to rise again.

Sandia National Laboratories Scientist John Sandusky came up with the novel idea of employing these instruments after hours. "They collect an enormous quantity

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