NASA's NEO Program Overview
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SMD Near Earth Object Program Presentation to Asteroid Deflection Research Symposium Lindley Johnson Program Executive NASA HQ 23 Oct 2008 Why this is Important SMD Why this is Important SMD Barringer Crater Winslow, Arizona Diameter – 1.2 km Age – 50,000 yrs Impactor size - ~50m Energy released - ~5Mt Earth’s Cratered Past SMD Terminology SMD • “Near Earth Objects (NEOs)”- any small body (comet or asteroid) passing within 1.3 astronomical unit (au) of the Sun – 1 au is the distance from Earth to Sun = ~ 150 million kilometers (km) – NEOs are predicted to pass within ~ 48 million km of Earth’s orbit – e.g. any small body passing between orbits of Venus to Mars – Population of: • Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) • Near Earth Comets (NECs) – also called Earth Approaching Comets (EACs) – 65 currently known • “Potentially Hazardous Objects (PHOs)” – small body that has potential risk of impacting the Earth at some point in the future – NEOs passing within 0.05 au of Earth’s orbit • ~ 8 million km = 20 times the distance to the Moon – Appears to be almost 20% of all NEOs discovered History of Known NEO Population SMD The Inner Solar System in 2006 180019001950199019992006 Known • 338,186 minor planets • 4159 NEOs Earth • 789 PHOs Crossing New Survey Will Likely Find Outside @ > 140m Earth’s Orbit • 66,000+ NEOs • 18,000+ PHOs ArmaghScott ObservatoryManley Impact Frequencies and Consequences SMD Diameter of Impact Average Impact Energy(MT) Type of Event Impact Object Interval (years) High altitude break-up < 50 m <5 1 - 50 Tunguska-like event > 50 m >5 250 - 500 Regional event > 140 m ~150 5,000 Large sub-global event > 300 m ~2,000 25,000 Low global effect > 600 m ~30,000 70,000 Medium global effect > 1 km >100K 1 million High global effect > 5 km > 10M 6 million Extinction-class Event > 10 km >100M 100 million Effects of TUNGUSKA EVENT SMD June 1908 – 100 years ago NEO Observation Program SMD US component to international Spaceguard Survey Has provided 98% of new detections of NEOs Began with NASA commitment to House Committee on Science in May, 1998 Scientific Objective: Discover 90% of NEOs larger than 1 kilometer in size within 10 years (1998 – 2008) NASA Authorization Act of 2005 provided additional direction (but no additional funding) “…plan, develop, and implement a Near-Earth Object Survey program to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize the physical characteristics of near-Earth objects equal to or greater than 140 meters in diameter in order to assess the threat of such near-Earth objects to the Earth. It shall be the goal of the Survey program to achieve 90 percent completion of its near-Earth object catalogue (based on statistically predicted populations of near-Earth objects) within 15 years after the date of enactment of this Act.” NASA’s NEO Search Projects SMD (at peak – 2005) NEO Program Office @ JPL • Program coordination Spacewatch • Automated SENTRY LONEOS http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ Minor Planet Center (MPC) • IAU sanctioned • Discovery Clearinghouse • Initial Orbit Determination Lowell Observatory, AZ Catalina Sky Survey LINEAR UofAZ, Kitt Peak, AZ NEAT UofAZ JPL, Caltech MIT/LL Arizona & Australia Hawaii & CA Soccoro, NM Discoveries Chart 1: Large NEO Discovery Rate Running Average 12 Month Trend 12 10 8 6 # / Lunation / # 4 2 DiscoveryDiscovery Rate of >1km Metrics NEOs 0 Jan-98 Jul-98 Jan-99 Jul-99 Jan-00 Jul-00 Jan-01 Jul-01 Jan-02 Jul-02 Jan-03 Jul-03 Jan-04 Jul-04 Jan-05 Jul-05 Jan-06 Jul-06 Jan-07 Jul-07 Jan-08 Jul-08 SMD NASA’s NEO Search Projects SMD (in 2009) NEO Program Office @ JPL • Program coordination Spacewatch • Automated SENTRY LONEOS http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/ Minor Planet Center (MPC) • IAU sanctioned • Discovery Clearinghouse • Initial Orbit Determination Lowell Observatory, AZ Catalina Sky Survey LINEAR UofAZ, Kitt Peak, AZ NEAT UofAZ JPL, Caltech MIT/LL Arizona & Australia Hawaii & CA Soccoro, NM Discovery Metric SMD Chart 2: Cumulative Large NEO Discoveries 1000 Estimated Population Goal } 940+50 800 850 At current discovery rate, (2/month) we 600 will fall short of goal 820* 400 as of 10/01/08 200 *Includes 65 NECs Jun-98 Dec-98 Jun-99 Dec-99 Jun-00 Dec-00 Jun-01 Dec-01 Jun-02 Dec-02 Jun-03Dec-03 Jun-04 Dec-04 Jun-05 Dec-05 Jun-06 Dec-06 Jun-07 Dec-07 Jun-08 Dec-08 Previous 4773 smaller objects also found Known Near Earth Asteriod Population SMD Frequency of NEOs by Size, Impact Energy, SMD Brightness (Harris 2006) Impact Energy, MT 10-1 102 105 108 1010 a NEAs, This report k 0 s Stuart 2001 10 u 8 g Harris 2002 10 n u Brown et al. 2002, T annual bolide event s 2 r Constant power law 10 a e 6 y from 2003 SDT report , 10 l ) Discovered to 10/31/06 a v H r < 4 e ( t r 10 n N I o t 4 t c 10 c a a p p m m I I 6 T 10 - 2 K 10 140 m 8 50 m Absolute Magnitude, H 10 100 31 30 29 28 27 26 25 24 23 22 21 20 19 18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 9 0.01 0.1 1 10 Diameter, Km Close Approachers SMD Predicted Close Approach of 2004 MN4 “Apophis” (an ~270m Object) on April 13, 2029 CLOSE-UP VIEW Geosynchronous Orbit So far, five other PHOs of >100m size have threshold potential for impact in next 50 years Return of Apophis! SMD These results were computed on May 06, 2008 99942 Apophis (2004 MN4) Earth Impact Table Sigma Sigma Stretch Impact Impact Palermo Torino Date Distance Width Impact LOV LOV Probability Energy Scale Scale YYYY-MM-DD.DD (rEarth) (rEarth) (rEarth) (MT) 2036-04-13.37 0.53 1.19e-03 0.000 -2.43132 1.60e+03 2.2e-05 5.06e+02 -2.42 0 2037-04-13.64 0.63 1.11e-03 0.000 4.12074 1.58e+03 8.1e-08 5.06e+02 -4.87 0 2069-04-13.08 0.46 0.00e+00 0.000 2.02831 1.85e+05 4.9e-07 5.06e+02 -4.41 0 Spaceguard Survey Catalog Program Current Spaceguard Survey Infrastructure and Process SMD Survey, Publish/ Correlate, Determine Observations and Detect, Update Rough Orbit Update Orbit & Report Results Radar Alerts No Possible • MPC PHO New PHO? of interest Resolve Iterate • MPC Routine Result possible Processing Differences Yes Yes close Publish Publish approach Results No Results • JPL reports Impact Possible No possible Impact? Still impact to Possible? NASA/HQ Survey Systems • JPL Yes Precision Orbit publishes MPC* and Follow Up probability NEO PO (& NEODyS) Observations of impact * Minor Planet Center The Short Life of 2008 TC3 SMD Discovered by Catalina Sky Survey Mt Lemmon Survey Telescope (1.5m) at 0640 on Oct 6, 2008. ~19 Mv The Short Life of 2008 TC3 SMD Initial MPC orbit determination finds object will impact Earth within 24 hrs. MPC alerts JPL NEO Program Office and HQ NASA The Short Life of 2008 TC3 SMD JPL SENTRY run predicts impact at 0245 on 7 Oct, 2008 over northern Sudan Community responds with 570 observations from 27 observers The Short Life of 2008 TC3 SMD The Short Life of 2008 TC3 SMD Copyright 2008 EUMETSAT NASA AUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2005 Direction for Extended Search SMD “The Congress declares that the general welfare and security of the United States require that the unique competence of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration be directed to detecting, tracking, cataloguing, and characterizing near-Earth asteroids and comets in order to provide warning and mitigation of the potential hazard of such near- Earth objects to the Earth” “The Administrator shall plan, develop, and implement a Near-Earth Object Survey program to detect, track, catalogue, and characterize the physical characteristics of near- Earth objects equal to or greater than 140 meters in diameter in order to assess the threat of such near-Earth objects to the Earth. It shall be the goal of the Survey program to achieve 90 percent completion of its near-Earth object catalogue (based on statistically predicted populations of near-Earth objects) within 15 years after the date of enactment of this Act.” “The Administrator shall transmit to Congress not later than 1 year after the date of enactment of this Act an initial report that provides the following: (A) An analysis of possible alternatives that NASA may employ to carry out the Survey program, including ground- based and space-based alternatives with technical descriptions. (B) A recommended option and proposed budget to carry out the Survey program pursuant to the recommended option. (C) Analysis of possible alternatives that NASA could employ to divert an object on a likely collision course with Earth.” Detection and Tracking Options Trade Tree SMD Detect/Track/CatalogDetect/Track/Catalog VisibleVisible InfraredInfrared Ops./DataOps./Data Mgt.Mgt. GroundGround BasedBased SpaceSpace BasedBased SpaceSpace BasedBased DD--15:15: Scale Scale Existing Existing SystemsSystems ExistingExisting NewNew AssetAsset NewNew AssetAsset DD--16:16: Adopt Adopt Other Other Similar Similar SystemsSystems DD--1:1: Spaceguard Spaceguard DD--11:11: 0.5m 0.5m IR IR L1/L2 L1/L2 DD--17:17: New New Central Central DD--8:8: 2m 2m Vis Vis LEO/L1/L2 LEO/L1/L2 RepositoryRepository Proposed D:12:D:12: 1m 1m IR IR L1/L2 L1/L2 DD--18:18: Back Back--upup Facility Facility Proposed DD--9:9: 1m 1m Vis Vis Venus Venus--likelike DD--2:2: Shared Shared LSST LSST DD--10:10: 2m 2m Vis Vis Venus Venus--likelike DD--13:13: 0.5 0.5 IR IR Venus Venus--likelike DD--3:3: Shared Shared PS4 PS4 DD--14:14: 1m 1m IR IR Venus Venus--likelike New Asset New Asset Some elements may contribute DD--4:4: Dedicated Dedicated LSST LSST substantially to characterization, but with reduced search performance DD--5:5: Dedicated Dedicated PS4 PS4 DD--6:6: Dedicated Dedicated PS8 PS8 LSST – Large Synoptic Survey Telescope PSx – PanSTARRS (x = number of telescope elements) DD--7:7: Dedicated Dedicated PS16 PS16 LEO – Low Earth