NASA says it is testing its next-generation telescope that could one day help astronomers spot a city- or even planet-destroying asteroid like in the 2021 movie “Don’t Look Up.” The Near-Earth Object Surveyor, or NEO Surveyor, is the U.S. space agency’s first infrared space telescope specifically designed to look for these potential hazards, helping to reveal even the darkest threats in space and those hidden in the glare of our sun. Astronomers have found fewer than half of the estimated existing city-killer asteroids and it would take another 30 years to find all of them without the $1.6 billion telescope, according to The Planetary Society , a non-profit space science organization. “Because our night skies are now crowded with thousands of bright satellites and asteroids are tiny and dark, ground-based telescopes have trouble finding near-Earth objects quickly. Placing a small telescope in space solves both these problems,” Casey Dreier, the society’s director, said in a 2023 statement .…