NASA’s CNEOS is home to Sentry – an automated asteroid tracking system that calculates the odds of impact with asteroids headed our way.
The US space agency said: “Sentry is a highly automated collision monitoring system that continually scans the most current asteroid catalogue for possibilities of future impact with Earth over the next 100 years.
“Whenever a potential impact is detected it will be analysed and the results immediately published here, except in unusual cases where we seek independent confirmation.”
Other things to check out:
NRL-camera aboard NASA spacecraft confirms asteroid phenomenon
WISPR enabled researchers to identify the dust cloud trailing the orbit of the asteroid 3200 Phaethon.
"This is why NRL's heliospheric imagers are so ground-breaking," Battams said. "They allow you to see near-Sun outflows massively fainter than the Sun itself, which would otherwise blind our cameras. And in this case, you can also see solar system objects extremely close to the Sun, which most telescopes cannot do."
He said the trail is best seen near the Sun where 3200 Phaethon's dust is more densely packed, making WISPR a vital tool for scientists.
Nasa reveals 240-foot 'Friday the 13th' asteroid will skim past Earth at 18,000mph
The massive space rock measures 243 feet (74 metres) in diameter – and is officially designated as a "near-Earth object".
Asteroids regularly make close approaches to Earth, and Nasa creates alerts for each one of these objects.
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For instance, four 'All Saints' asteroids skimmed past Earth on November 1 , completely harmlessly.
Now Nasa has revealed that another asteroid is scheduled for an Earth fly-by on Friday, December 13.
UArizona Looks Toward Work on NASA's Potential Asteroid-Hunting Space Telescope | UANews
The University of Arizona is spearheading work that would begin efforts to construct a space-based infrared telescope that could provide the capabilities NASA needs to search for asteroids and comets that pose impact hazards to Earth, called near-Earth objects, or NEOs.
Professor Amy Mainzer of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona will provide technical leadership for the projected mission, to be in partnership with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. The Near-Earth Object Surveillance Mission, or NEOSM, consists of a spacecraft, to be called the NEO Surveyor, that would continuously collect infrared images of near-Earth space, and the investigation team which will process, analyze and archive the data from it.
In case you are keeping track:
Doomsday asteroid Bennu spits rocks into space, NASA baffled
Scientists are worried that nuclear testing at the base of Mt Paektu could cause it to explode. A supervolcano eruption has the potential to impact the earth in the same way as an asteroid. It could be the end of the human race.
This view of asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on January 19. Picture: NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/Lockheed Martin Source:Supplied
So-called “doomsday” asteroid Bennu is ejecting metre-sized “particles” into space – and NASA is baffled.
ESA Risk List Update: Agency Predicts Asteroid Might Hit Earth Next Year
The European Space Agency (ESA) warned that it has detected an asteroid that has a good chance of hitting Earth less than a year from now. If the approaching space rock collides with the planet, it could create a powerful explosion in the atmosphere.
The incoming asteroid, known as 2018 VP1 , is currently in the ESA Risk List , which catalogs all known space rocks with non-zero impact probabilities. As of this writing, 2018 VP1 is ranked as the second most dangerous asteroid on the list due to its chances of hitting Earth.
Astro Bob Blog: Scary Asteroids and a new way to find them | Duluth News Tribune
NASA's daring asteroid mission finally finds its grab-and-go spot on Bennu - CNET
This shows how Osiris-Rex will aim for the sample-collection site in the Nightingale area of Bennu.
NASA announced the winning spot on Thursday. It hasn't been an easy process. In July, NASA narrowed the options down to four sites with bird-themed names: Nightingale, Kingfisher, Osprey and Sandpiper. Nightingale is the chosen one .
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Bennu is a much messier, rockier place than NASA expected. The agency had hoped to find a spacious sandy area free of obstacles, but the asteroid is littered with boulders, some of which are as big as buildings.
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