Near Earth Asteroid Tracking

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Number of objects close to the earth, detected by various projects
  • LINEAR
  • NEAT
  • Spacewatch
  • LONEOS
  • Catalina Sky Survey
  • Pan-STARRS
  • NeoWise
  • ATLAS
  • all other
  • NEAT (Near Earth Asteroid Tracking) was a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) for sky surveillance in cooperation with the US Air Force and the US space agency NASA , which was carried out between December 1995 and April 2007. His aim was to track down all near-Earth asteroids in order to be warned in good time (ideally many years to decades) of a dangerous collision between Earth and an asteroid.

    Numerous comets were also discovered as part of the surveillance program . (As of May 2004 there were 43 comets). All these comets have the part of their name 'NEAT', or (if the discovery was made by another observer or group of observers at the same time) a combined one, e.g. B. 'NEAT- LINEAR '.

    The comet with the designation C / 2001 Q4 (NEAT) , which was discovered on August 24, 2001 and reached an apparent brightness of about in May 2004, is of particular importance . At about the same time, comet C / 2002 T7 (LINEAR) reached its greatest brightness, so that two bright comets that could be seen with the naked eye could be seen simultaneously from the southern hemisphere of the earth.

    The asteroid (64070) NEAT , discovered in 2001, was named in honor of the program.

    From 2002, the data obtained were also evaluated using the Sentry surveillance system .

    See also

    Web links

    Individual evidence

    1. Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT). In: PDS Asteroid / Dust Archive. NASA, accessed February 5, 2014 .
    2. JPL Small-Body Database Browser. 64070 NEAT (2001 SS272). NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, accessed February 5, 2014 .