9th IAA PLANETARY DEFENSE CONFERENCE 2025

ASSESSING THE VULNERABILITIES OF THE MEERKAT ASTEROID GUARD

C. Drury (a), M. Frühauf (b) , J.L. Cano (c) , F. Gianotto (a), M. Fenucci (a), L. Faggioli (a)

(a) ESA ESRIN / PDO / NEO Coordination Centre, Via Galileo Galilei, 1, 00044 Frascati (RM), Italy
(b) Technical University of Munich, Lunar and Planetary Exploration, Lise-Meitner-Str. 9, Ottobrunn, 85521, Germany
(c) ESA ESOC /...

In this work, we present the first results of the ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) unit that will be installed by the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias (IAC) at Teide Observatory (TO) on Tenerife Island, Spain, in January 2025. The ATLAS-Teide unit will operate as part of the ATLAS network (https://atlas.fallingstar.com/) under an agreement between the IAC and the ATLAS...

6ROADS, an independent company, owns a global network of fourteen remote telescopes strategically located across six continents. The primary mission focuses on tracking and surveying man-made objects in Low Earth Orbit (LEO), Medium Earth Orbit (MEO), and Geostationary Orbit (GEO), as well as confirming newly discovered Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) approaching Earth’s vicinity. The backbone of...

With its extremely large field of view of ≃47 square degrees, which scans the entire northern sky every two nights, the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) is a powerful tool for serendipitous detections of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). This effort aims to both discover new NEAs and refine the orbital information of known objects, anticipating and mitigating future dangerous collisions. We present...

The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Flyeye telescopes will play a crucial role in global planetary
defense efforts, with their unique optical design inspired by the compound eyes of a fly. These telescopes
feature an expanded field of view, allowing a more efficient survey of the sky and improving the
detection of potentially hazardous Near-Earth Objects (NEOs).
We present the status of the...

In 2019, the Catalina Sky Survey invited SPACEWATCH® to collaborate with them and the University of Minnesota on a new survey for near-Earth objects (NEOs) using Steward Observatory’s Bok 2.3-m telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona to discover faint near-Earth asteroids and to search for Earth Trojans. We propose for 6 to 9 nights of dark/grey time each lunation for the new Bok NEO Survey which...

We are part of an expertise group of over two dozen astronomers, computer scientists, data scientists and digital Big Data research platform experts at 11 universities and research institutes in South Africa and Europe. We study Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) for Planetary Defence and scientific purposes.

NEO Discovery. In this talk, we present our programme and results for algorithms and...

Measuring Asteroid Distances from a Single Observatory in One Night with Upcoming All-Sky Telescopes

Abstract: Since 1960 TLS (IAU code 033)
has operated the largest imaging Schmidt telescope
with a correction plate of 1.34 m in diameter. Initial
asteroid work by Freimut Börngen aimed at discover-
ing main-belt asteroids. In 2010, it was resumed by
joining the worldwide NEOCP effort. TLS became a
sensor in ESA’s NEOCC program in 2019. It is now
one of the major European observatories...

Asteroids are key to unlocking the secrets of our solar system's formation and evolution, as well as assessing potential threats to Earth from impacts. This paper presents a thorough account of a significant asteroid search campaign conducted as part of an international collaborative initiative focused on identifying and tracking near-Earth objects (NEOs) and main belt asteroids...

Keywords: near-Earth object, planetary defense, survey, infrared, detect

The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission is a key element in our future planetary defense portfolio, which will provide a complete survey of our solar system in the infrared.

The mission is designed to detect, track, and characterize small bodies throughout our solar system.
By congressional mandate, NASA must...

In this study, we propose the method of frame stacking which is implemented in celestial (equatorial) coordinate system. This method allows to prolong the “effective exposure time” of near-Earth objects (NEOs) increasing the efficiency of capturing faint objects. Additionally, it can be realized using CCD frames obtained by several optical systems simultaneously or at different...

Keywords: NEO, Detection, New Programs,

Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) pose a significant threat to Earth. The Chelyabinsk meteor impact in 2013 served as a stark reminder of this danger, releasing energy equivalent to 30 times the Hiroshima atomic bomb, causing widespread infrastructure damage and injuring approximately 1600 individuals. Apophis, is an asteroid approximately 370 meters in...

The Taurid Complex is a large interplanetary system that contains comet 2P/Encke, several meteoroid streams, and possibly a number of near-Earth asteroids [1]. The size and nature of the system have led to the speculation that it was formed through a large-scale cometary breakup [2]. Numerical investigations and meteor observations have suggested that planetary dynamics can create a resonant...

The Chelyabinsk meteor entered Earth’s atmosphere on 15 February 2013, producing a shock wave that injured about 1,500 people and damaged thousands of buildings. Despite its relatively large size (~20 m), the progenitor asteroid approached Earth undetected. Its radiant was too close to the Sun for standard near-Earth asteroid (NEA) search programmes. In addition, it was very faint due to the...

The Vera Rubin Observatory Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) will provide an unprecedented number of potential Near-Earth Object (NEO) discoveries. Many of these new NEO detections will require additional detections for confirmation and orbit refinement. While follow-up strategies have been actively developed, it is expected to take a significant dedicated amount of time and resources to...

Konkoly Observatory is conducting the most successful NEO survey project in Europe with a total number of NEOs found in the past four years in excess of 250, with three imminent impactors discovered between 2022 and 2024. Recently, supported by the European Space Agency, we started the implementation of a new search technique that is using machine learning algorithms to accelerate real-time...

The first NEO observations were conducted in 2017 using the new wide-field telescope of the “Sazhen-S” quantum-optical station of the National space Facilities Control and Test Center (NSFCTC) of the State Space Agency of Ukraine. Regular observations, including the follow-up of new objects discoveries, began in 2019. By the end of 2024, three telescopes of NSFCTC in different parts of Ukraine...

As demonstrated by the Chelyabinsk event on February 15, 2013, collisions of small (decameter-class) Near-Earth objects (NEOs) with the Earth pose a danger to inhabitants of our planet. These bodies are faint and can only be systematically detected in near-Earth space. Moreover, half of these bodies approach the Earth from the day-time sky and can only be detected by special space-borne...

Near-Earth objects (NEOs) pose significant threats to human survival due to their potential for Earth impact. This necessitates the development of monitoring and early-warning technologies for hazardous NEOs. Current monitoring systems rely primarily on ground-based observation networks, which lack the capability for all-day, all-sky monitoring. Consequently, space-based monitoring systems,...