EARTH STIKES BACK

Hey Space Placers!

Read the latest about humanity's fight against asteroids that threaten us.

Hyabusa 2
Credit: ESA

Really important also in this fight is detection - you can't fight them if you can't see them coming.

Important to detection is NASA's NEOCam.  It will detect many Near Earth Objects (NEOs) especially those that we cannot see from Earth due to the Sun. Dr. Amy Mainzer has been working on  NEOCam and has also been the Primary Investigator for NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) mission. 

Comet C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto as imaged in multiple exposures of infrared light by the NEOWISE space telescope. The infrared images were taken on Feb. 25, 2019, when the comet was about 56 million miles, or 90 million kilometers, from Earth. C/2018 Y1 Iwamoto is a long-period comet originally from the Oort Cloud and coming in near the Sun for the first time in over 1,000 years.

Appearing as a string of red dots, this comet can be seen in a series of exposures captured by the spacecraft. Infrared light detected by the 3.4-micron channel is mapped to blue and green, while light from the 4.6-micron channel is mapped to red. In this image, stars show up as blue because they are hotter, whereas the cooler dust around the comet - with a temperature near the freezing point of water - glows red.

Credit: NASA JPL-Caltech

NEOWISE released its fifth year of survey data on April 11, 2019. The five years of NEOWISE data have significantly advanced scientists’ knowledge of asteroids and comets in the solar system, as well as the stars and galaxies beyond.

Dr. Amy Mainzer, NASA JPL with Sky Guy Greg

It is only a matter of when, not if, that Earth gets smacked again......

Sky Guy in VA