Speaker
Description
The International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) is an organized network established in 2013 and sanctioned by the United Nations to coordinate worldwide entities involved in the detection, tracking, and characterization of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). IAWN provides means of communicating and developing plans and protocols for responding to impact threats by obtaining and processing observational information into actionable definitions of physical parameters. In order to develop response methodologies, and test the readiness of IAWN participants to characterize such threats, IAWN frequently organizes campaigns of chosen targets which include a corps of global volunteer participants comprised of observers, modelers, and decision-makers (cf. Kelley et al. 2025 – this conference). While our past campaigns regarded aspects of measurement, modelling and characterization of Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) on differing timescales, no such campaign has been carried out for a target that is cometary. Comets present unique challenges for accurate astrometric measurements and orbit predictions. Cometary bodies are extended with morphological features (comae and tails) that can systematically pull their centroid measurements off their central brightness peak, increasing the uncertainty of their fitted orbits. Furthermore, near-Earth comets (NECs) undergo nongravitational acceleration from gas and dust mass-ejection that alters their orbits over time, and many undergo frequent orbital perturbations by close encounters with Jupiter and other giant planets. NECs represent a significant fraction of the known NEOs with sizes ~1 km or larger. Therefore, they represent a critical impact-hazard we must be ready to characterize in a timely manner. We will present the IAWN plans to undertake a comet observation campaign, which will include a workshop on techniques to improve an observer’s cometary astrometric measurements, an observing campaign on a selected comet, a period of analysis of the observing results, and a summary of lessons-learned from the exercise.