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LONEOS
Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) was a project designed to discover asteroids and comets that orbit near the Earth. The project, funded by NASA, was directed by astronomer Ted Bowell of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. The LONEOS project began in 1993 and ran until the end of February 2008. Hardware LONEOS, in its final configuration, used a 0.6-meter f/1.8 Schmidt telescope, acquired from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1990, and a Lowell-built 16 megapixel CCD detector. This combination of instruments provided a field of view of 2.88 by 2.88 degrees (8.3 square degrees). It had a maximum nightly scan area of about 1,000 square degrees (covered four times). The instrument could cover the entire accessible dark sky in about a month. The CCD has detected asteroids as faint as visual magnitude 19.8 but its typical limiting visual magnitude was 19.3. The instrument is located at Lowell Observatory's dark sky site, Anderson Mesa Station, near Flagstaff ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ted Bowell
Edward L. G. "Ted" Bowell (born 1943 in London), is an American astronomer. Bowell was educated at Emanuel School London, University College, London, and the University of Paris. He was principal investigator of the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS). He has discovered a large number of asteroids, both as part of LONEOS and in his own right before LONEOS began. Among the latter are the Jovian asteroids 2357 Phereclos, 2759 Idomeneus, 2797 Teucer, 2920 Automedon, 3564 Talthybius, 4057 Demophon, and (4489) 1988 AK. He also co-discovered the periodic comet 140P/Bowell-Skiff and the non-periodic comet C/1980 E1. The outer main-belt asteroid 2246 Bowell was named in his honor. The official naming citation was published on 1 January 1981 (). List of discovered minor planets Edward Bowell discovered 571 minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical objec ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid
A potentially hazardous object (PHO) is a near-Earth object – either an asteroid or a comet – with an orbit that can make close approaches to the Earth and is large enough to cause significant regional damage in the event of impact. They are defined as having a minimum orbit intersection distance with Earth of less than and an absolute magnitude of 22 or brighter. More than 99% of the known potentially hazardous objects are not an impact threat over the next 100 years. , only 17 potentially hazardous objects are listed on the Sentry Risk Table as objects that are known not to be a threat over the next hundred years are excluded. Over hundreds if not thousands of years, "potentially hazardous" asteroids have the potential for their orbits to evolve to live up to their namesake. Most of these objects are potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), and a few are comets. there are 2,304 known PHAs (about 8% of the total near-Earth population), of which 153 are estimated to be large ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) was a program run by NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, surveying the sky for near-Earth objects. NEAT was conducted from December 1995 until April 2007, at GEODSS on Hawaii (Haleakala-NEAT; 566), as well as at Palomar Observatory in California (Palomar-NEAT; 644). With the discovery of more than 40 thousand minor planets, NEAT has been one of the most successful programs in this field, comparable to the Catalina Sky Survey, LONEOS and Mount Lemmon Survey. NEAT was the successor to the Palomar Planet-Crossing Asteroid Survey (PCAS). History The original principal investigator was Eleanor F. Helin, with co-investigators Steven H. Pravdo and David L. Rabinowitz. NEAT has a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Air Force to use a GEODSS telescope located on Haleakala, Maui, Hawaii. GEODSS stands for Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance and these wide field Air Force telescopes were designed to optically observe Earth o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Asteroids
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. Of the roughly one million known asteroids the greatest number are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, approximately 2 to 4 AU from the Sun, in the main asteroid belt. Asteroids are generally classified to be of three types: C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbonaceous, metallic, and silicaceous compositions, respectively. The size of asteroids varies greatly; the largest, Ceres, is almost across and qualifies as a dwarf planet. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is only 3% that of Earth's Moon. The majority of main belt asteroids follow slightly elliptical, stable orbits, revolving in the same direction as the Earth and taking from three to six years to co ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anderson Mesa Station
Anderson Mesa Station is an astronomical observatory established in 1959 as a dark-sky observing site for Lowell Observatory. It is located at Anderson Mesa in Coconino County, Arizona, about 12 miles southeast of Lowell's main campus on Mars Hill in Flagstaff, Arizona. Telescopes Current telescopes * The Perkins Telescope is shared with Boston University (BU) and Georgia State University. Built in 1931 by Warner & Swasey Company, it was originally located at the Perkins Observatory of Ohio Wesleyan University (OWU) in Delaware, Ohio. It was moved to Anderson Mesa in 1961, and was purchased by Lowell in 1998. Lowell and BU formed a partnership to operate the telescope that year, and GSU joined later. The original 69-inch mirror, which was figured by J. W. Fecker, Inc., was the largest single piece of glass ever cast in America when it was poured. It was replaced in 1965 with the current mirror made of Duran-50 low-expansion glass. * The John Hall Telescope was built by ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Near-Earth Object
A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). If a NEO's orbit crosses the Earth's orbit, and the object is larger than across, it is considered a potentially hazardous object (PHO). Most known PHOs and NEOs are asteroids, but a small fraction are comets. There are over 30,503 known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and over a hundred known short-period near-Earth comets (NECs). A number of solar-orbiting meteoroids were large enough to be tracked in space before striking the Earth. It is now widely accepted that collisions in the past have had a significant role in shaping the geological and biological history of the Earth. Asteroids as small as in diameter can cause significant damage to the local environment and human populations. Larger asteroids penetrate the atmosphere to the surf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research
The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project is a collaboration of the United States Air Force, NASA, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory for the systematic detection and tracking of near-Earth objects. LINEAR was responsible for the majority of asteroid discoveries from 1998 until it was overtaken by the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005. , LINEAR had detected 231,082 new small Solar System bodies, of which at least 2,423 were near-Earth asteroids and 279 were comets. The instruments used by the LINEAR program are located at Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site (ETS) on the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) near Socorro, New Mexico. History In the late 1970s, the ''Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site'' facility (observatory code 704) was built at White Sands Missile Range. The project's prototype used low-light video cameras. In 1994 a new proposal was made for automated detection of asteroids, this time using newer digit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Spacewatch
The Spacewatch Project is an astronomical survey that specializes in the study of minor planets, including various types of asteroids and comets at University of Arizona telescopes on Kitt Peak near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. The Spacewatch Project has been active longer than any other similar currently active programs. Spacewatch was founded in 1980 by Tom Gehrels and Robert S. McMillan, and is currently led by astronomer Melissa Brucker at the University of Arizona. Spacewatch uses several telescopes on Kitt Peak for follow-up observations of near-Earth objects. The Spacewatch Project uses three telescopes of apertures 0.9-m, 1.8-m, and 2.3-m. These telescopes are located on Kitt Peak mountain in Arizona, and the first two are dedicated to the purpose of locating Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). The 36 inch (0.9 meter) telescope on Kitt Peak has been in use by Spacewatch since 1984, and since 2000 the 72 inch (1.8 meter) Spacewatch telescope. The 36 inch tel ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Catalina Sky Survey
Catalina Sky Survey (CSS; obs. code: 703) is an astronomical survey to discover comets and asteroids. It is conducted at the Steward Observatory's Catalina Station, located near Tucson, Arizona, in the United States. CSS focuses on the search for near-Earth objects, in particular on any potentially hazardous asteroid that may pose a threat of impact. Its counterpart in the southern hemisphere was the Siding Spring Survey (SSS), closed in 2013 due to loss of funding. CSS supersedes the photographic Bigelow Sky Survey. Mission The NEO Observations Program is a result of a United States 1998 congressional directive to NASA to begin a program to identify 1 kilometre (0.62 mile) or larger objects to around 90 percent confidence level or better. The Catalina Sky Survey, located at the Mount Lemmon Observatory in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, carries out searches for near-earth objects, NEOs, contributing to the congressionally mandated goal. In addition to identif ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Near-Earth Asteroid
A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun ( perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). If a NEO's orbit crosses the Earth's orbit, and the object is larger than across, it is considered a potentially hazardous object (PHO). Most known PHOs and NEOs are asteroids, but a small fraction are comets. There are over 30,503 known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) and over a hundred known short-period near-Earth comets (NECs). A number of solar-orbiting meteoroids were large enough to be tracked in space before striking the Earth. It is now widely accepted that collisions in the past have had a significant role in shaping the geological and biological history of the Earth. Asteroids as small as in diameter can cause significant damage to the local environment and human populations. Larger asteroids penetrate the atmosphere to the su ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Lowell Observatory
Lowell Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, United States. Lowell Observatory was established in 1894, placing it among the oldest observatories in the United States, and was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1965. and In 2011, the Observatory was named one of "The World's 100 Most Important Places" by Time Magazine. It was at the Lowell Observatory that the dwarf planet Pluto was discovered in 1930 by Clyde Tombaugh. The observatory was founded by astronomer Percival Lowell of Boston's Lowell family and is overseen by a sole trustee, a position historically handed down through the family. The first trustee was Lowell's third cousin Guy Lowell (1916–1927). Percival's nephew Roger Putnam served from 1927 to 1967, followed by Roger's son Michael (1967–1987), Michael's brother William Lowell Putnam III (1987–2013), and current trustee W. Lowell Putnam. Multiple astronauts attended the Lowell Observatory in 1963 while the moon w ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apollo Asteroid
The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth-crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth (a > 1 AU) but perihelion distances less than the Earth's aphelion distance (q < 1.017 AU). , the number of known Apollo asteroids is 10,485, making the class the largest group of s (''cf''. the , Amor and Atira asteroids), [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
