Space Neighborhood needs watching

Blind Spots and Fuzzy Vision looking for Near-Earth Asteroids
Next Big Future

From New Scientist, existing sky surveys miss many asteroids smaller than 1 km across, leaving the door open to damaging impacts of Earth with little of no warning, a panel of scientists reports. Doing better will require devoting more powerful telescopes to asteroid hunting, but no one has committed the funds needed to do so, it says

NASA calculated, that to spot the asteroids as required by (Congressional mandate) would cost about $800 million between neo and 2020, either with a new ground-based telescope or a space observation system... If NASA (received) only $300 million, if could find most asteroids bigger than 1000 feet across..."

More from Next Big Picture
Download the Report from NAP.edu, or,
Mirror Site (no registration necessary), HERE.

NEO detection not meeting congressional goals

Arecibo radar images of 2-kilometer-diameter asteroid 1992 UY4 made from four days’ observations in August 2005. Radar images are unusual in that the coordinates are not spatial ones on the plane of the sky. Rather, radar images are in delay and Doppler coordinates, corresponding for each pixel to its (relative) distance from us and its (relative) radial velocity, determined, respectively, by the time delay and Doppler shift of the echo. The delay (distance) resolution for these images is ~5 nanoseconds (7.5 meters, one-way), and the Doppler (velocity) resolution is 0.029 Hertz (~0.2 centimeters/second). The delay coordinate is vertical and the Doppler coordinate is horizontal. SOURCE: Lance Benner, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology.

According to a new interim report from the National Research Council, "NEAR-EARTH OBJECT SURVEYS AND HAZARD MITIGATION STRATEGIES," NASA’s current near-Earth object surveys will not meet the congressionally mandated goal of discovering 90 percent of all objects over 140 meters in diameter by 2020. Funding for near-Earth object activities at NASA has been constrained, with most costs being met by funds from other programs.

A final report to be released later in 2009 will expand on the interim report with findings and recommendations on detecting, characterizing, and mitigating the hazard of near-Earth objects.

Download the Report from NAP.edu, or,
Mirror Site (no registration necessary), HERE.