On April 20-21, the second International Space Apps Challenge will take place in 75 cities on seven continents and aboard the International Space Station. Begun in 2012 by NASA, the Challenge is an international mass collaboration event. Thousands of citizen scientists and inventors come together for 48 hours of intense technology development. Participants respond to challenges from NASA and 100 partner organizations ranging from [...]
Post Tagged with: “potentially hazardous asteroid”
Asteroid Mission OSIRIS-REx to Nail Down Yarkovsky Effect
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, due to launch in 2016, has a primary mission of sampling the potentially hazardous asteroid 1999 RQ36. But along the way, OSIRIS-REx is going to investigate some other useful maneuvers, such as how to land on an asteroid, and most importantly, how to predict when an asteroid poses a collision hazard. OSIRIS-REx will aim to improve collision [...]
Apophis Passage Improves Forecasts
The asteroid Apophis has made yet another pass of planet Earth, this one visible only through a high powered telescope. The passage has spurred interest mostly for a could-have-been: the asteroid was once thought to have a 2.7% chance of impacting Earth in 2029. Improved observation resolution has now ruled out such a collision and it is expected that data [...]
Asteroids Swoop Past Earth
On the morning of December 11, asteroid 2012 XE54 – discovered just two days prior – passed within 230,000 km of Earth. The 36 m long asteroid passed well within the Moon’s orbit, experiencing an unusual surface eclipse as it passed through Earth’s shadow. 2012 XE54 highlights the need for improved cataloguing of potentially hazardous asteroids. Tuesday’s passage was quite [...]
Amateur Astronomer Locates Missing Near Earth Asteroid
By Kishan Chouhan Amateur astronomer Erwin Schwab was determined to find it. The potentially hazardous asteroid 2008SE85 had disappeared shortly after its September 2008 discovery by the Catalina Sky Survey. Following a few observations in October 2008, the asteroid had seemingly disappeared, predictions for its orbit clearly inaccurate. But in September 2012, Schwab finally located the lost space rock. “I found [...]
B612 Foundation Contracts Ball Aerospace for Sentinel Sensors
The following press release was published by the B612 Foundation on October 30: Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. and the non-profit B612 Foundation have signed a contract for Ball to create prototype infrared imaging sensors for the Sentinel Mission, a deep space mission to protect Earth by providing early warning of threatening asteroids. Ball’s detector design characterization initiates the first [...]
Asteroid 2012 TC4 to Pass Within 0.25 Lunar Distances of Earth
Asteroid 2012 TC4 was discovered on October 4. The 13-29 m rock will make its closest approach to Earth on October 12, passing close enough at 95,000 km to be visible through a backyard telescope. The asteroid passes just 0.25 lunar distances from Earth, well within the designated corridor for potentially hazardous asteroids (PHA). NASA is hoping to ping the [...]
The Increasing Rate of Asteroid Discovery
As we continue to discover new asteroids, we become more aware of the potential threat they pose to Earth. Amateur skywatchers can now easily monitor near Earth asteroids, which seem to make their closest approaches at more frequent intervals all the time. Below, astronomer turned entrepreneur Scott Manley demonstrates the rate of discovery of these bodies from 1980 to today. Manley points [...]
Taking Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) Seriously—Clarifying Nearer Term Risk
This article is the second in the series “Taking Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) Seriously” by Joseph N. Pelton, President, International Space Safety Foundation and Chair, IAASS Academic Committee. The prime instrument we now have to assess the threat of Potentially Hazardous Asteroids is called the Wide-Field Infra-Red Survey Explorer (WISE). The good news from NASA is that the latest survey [...]
Earth Safe from Asteroid 2012 LZ1 for 750 Years
Asteroid 2012 LZ1 was discovered on June 10, 2012 and classified as potentially hazardous since its orbit comes within the prescribed 20 lunar distances of Earth. New observations from the Arecibo observatory have found that, although the asteroid is twice as large as originally thought, it is not likely to pose a collision hazard within the next 750 years. “This [...]
