Announcement
ESA/ESO Collaboration Successfully Tracks Its First Potentially Threatening Near-Earth Object
21 January 2014
The first Near-Earth Object (NEO) recovery campaign has been successfully carried out by a new collaboration between the European Space Agency (ESA) and ESO. Up to now the asteroid 2009 FD had been ranked among the top five objects in a list of the most dangerous objects, but new observations with ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) have now shown that it is far less likely to hit the Earth than had been feared [1].
NEOs are asteroids or comets with orbits around the Sun that come very close to the Earth's orbit. More than 600 000 asteroids are known in the Solar System, and more than 10 000 of them are NEOs. Their sizes range from metres to tens of kilometres. Some NEOs could hit our planet and, depending on their size, produce considerable damage. While the chance of a large object hitting the Earth is very small, it could produce a great deal of destruction and loss of life.
A new collaboration between ESA and ESO takes place within a global effort by the United Nations and its Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (UNCOPUOS). In the wake of the Chelyabinsk event over Russia last February, there is renewed interest in global action on the NEO threat. The UNCOPUOS Action Team, including ESO, put forward recommendations for an international response to the NEO impact threat to form an International Asteroid Warning Network, which the UN General Assembly approved in October 2013.
ESO's unique capabilities to observe very faint (but still threatening) NEOs complement ESA’s efforts to discover and track these objects. New observations of asteroid 2009 FD performed with ESO's 8.2-metre Very Large Telescope on Cerro Paranal in Chile resulted in good quality position measurements. These data have now been accepted by the IAU Minor Planet Center, the official organisation in charge of collecting observational data for minor planets. Both the European NEODyS system and the JPL-based Sentry system performed orbit determination and impact monitoring using these new VLT observations.
The NEO Segment of ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) aims to coordinate and combine information from different sources, and analyse them to predict possible impact with the Earth, and assess danger, and analyse possible mitigations, including the deflection of a menacing asteroid.
The successful observations of 2009 FD show that having access to a large telescope such as the VLT is a great opportunity for the NEO Coordination Centre, since it gives a chance to obtain accurate positional observations of very faint objects [2], which is only possible using the largest telescopes.
Notes
[1] The associated value on the Palermo scale has dropped by almost a factor of ten to a value of -2.6 (from -1.8 on the logarithmic scale). The computations indicate that there is still a small chance of an impact between the years 2185 and 2198.
[2] Down to visual magnitude 26.5.
More information
The observations were performed by the Paranal staff on behalf of the team, which includes Olivier Hainaut (ESO), Detlef Koschny (ESA) and Marco Micheli (NEOCC team, ESA/Serco).
Links
Contacts
Olivier R. Hainaut
ESO Astronomer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6752
Cell: +49 151 2262 0554
Email: ohainaut@eso.org
Richard Hook
ESO, Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org
About the Announcement
| Id: | ann14004 |
Images
Our use of Cookies
We use cookies that are essential for accessing our websites and using our services. We also use cookies to analyse, measure and improve our websites’ performance, to enable content sharing via social media and to display media content hosted on third-party platforms.
ESO Cookies Policy
The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) is the pre-eminent intergovernmental science and technology organisation in astronomy. It carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities for astronomy.
This Cookies Policy is intended to provide clarity by outlining the cookies used on the ESO public websites, their functions, the options you have for controlling them, and the ways you can contact us for additional details.
What are cookies?
Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your device by websites you visit. They serve various purposes, such as remembering login credentials and preferences and enhance your browsing experience.
Categories of cookies we use
Essential cookies (always active): These cookies are strictly necessary for the proper functioning of our website. Without these cookies, the website cannot operate correctly, and certain services, such as logging in or accessing secure areas, may not be available; because they are essential for the website’s operation, they cannot be disabled.
Functional Cookies: These cookies enhance your browsing experience by enabling additional features and personalization, such as remembering your preferences and settings. While not strictly necessary for the website to function, they improve usability and convenience; these cookies are only placed if you provide your consent.
Analytics cookies: These cookies collect information about how visitors interact with our website, such as which pages are visited most often and how users navigate the site. This data helps us improve website performance, optimize content, and enhance the user experience; these cookies are only placed if you provide your consent. We use the following analytics cookies.
Matomo Cookies:
This website uses Matomo (formerly Piwik), an open source software which enables the statistical analysis of website visits. Matomo uses cookies (text files) which are saved on your computer and which allow us to analyze how you use our website. The website user information generated by the cookies will only be saved on the servers of our IT Department. We use this information to analyze www.eso.org visits and to prepare reports on website activities. These data will not be disclosed to third parties.
On behalf of ESO, Matomo will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.
Matomo cookies settings:
Additional Third-party cookies on ESO websites: some of our pages display content from external providers, e.g. YouTube.
Such third-party services are outside of ESO control and may, at any time, change their terms of service, use of cookies, etc.
YouTube: Some videos on the ESO website are embedded from ESO’s official YouTube channel. We have enabled YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, meaning that no cookies are set unless the user actively clicks on the video to play it. Additionally, in this mode, YouTube does not store any personally identifiable cookie data for embedded video playbacks. For more details, please refer to YouTube’s embedding videos information page.
Cookies can also be classified based on the following elements.
Regarding the domain, there are:
- First-party cookies, set by the website you are currently visiting. They are stored by the same domain that you are browsing and are used to enhance your experience on that site;
- Third-party cookies, set by a domain other than the one you are currently visiting.
As for their duration, cookies can be:
- Browser-session cookies, which are deleted when the user closes the browser;
- Stored cookies, which stay on the user's device for a predetermined period of time.
How to manage cookies
Cookie settings: You can modify your cookie choices for the ESO webpages at any time by clicking on the link Cookie settings at the bottom of any page.
In your browser: If you wish to delete cookies or instruct your browser to delete or block cookies by default, please visit the help pages of your browser:
Please be aware that if you delete or decline cookies, certain functionalities of our website may be not be available and your browsing experience may be affected.
You can set most browsers to prevent any cookies being placed on your device, but you may then have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site/page. And some services and functionalities may not work properly at all (e.g. profile logging-in, shop check out).
Updates to the ESO Cookies Policy
The ESO Cookies Policy may be subject to future updates, which will be made available on this page.
Additional information
For any queries related to cookies, please contact: pdprATesoDOTorg.
As ESO public webpages are managed by our Department of Communication, your questions will be dealt with the support of the said Department.