NEO Lessons Learned

Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics

Scientific paper

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Scientific paper

With the first generation near-Earth Object (NEO) search efforts closing in upon the goal of finding 90% of the NEOs larger than one km by the end of 2008, a number of studies have addressed the next generation search goal to find 90% of the potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) larger than 140 meters by the end of 2020. Future large aperture, deep search surveys will need to focus their efforts upon the potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) rather than the close Earth approaching comets or the more numerous, but far less dangerous, near-Earth asteroids. These surveys will also need to carry out their own follow-up observations and develop automatic data processing and storage systems capable of handling about 50 times the current data flow. Risk evaluation systems (SENTRY, NEODyS) will need to deal with several times the current rate of Earth close approach scenarios and the public will need to get used to a tenfold increase in warnings where a future Earth impact cannot be immediately ruled out. When added to optical astrometry of recently discovered PHAs, critical radar astrometry from Arecibo and/or Goldstone can immediately secure their orbits and allow accurate orbital extrapolations to be carried out for decades. With an approximate 1% chance of an actual catastrophic impact by an asteroid 140 meters or larger in the next 50 years, physical characterizations of a representative sample of different asteroid types will be necessary and guidelines and viable techniques will need to be investigated for mitigation - a task made difficult by the enormous diversity of asteroid structures, sizes, shapes, spin states, compositions and multiplicities.

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