Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) was a program run by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agencies of the United States government, independent agency of the federal government of the United States, US federal government responsible for the United States ...

and the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center (FFRDC) in La Cañada Flintridge, California, Crescenta Valley, United States. Founded in 1936 by Cali ...

, surveying the sky for

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun ( perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance (astronomical unit, AU). This definition applies to the object's orbit a ...

s. NEAT was conducted from December 1995 until April 2007, at GEODSS on Hawaii (Haleakala-NEAT; 566), as well as at

Palomar Observatory The Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in the Palomar Mountains of San Diego County, California, United States. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...

in California (Palomar-NEAT; 644). With the

discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

of more than 40 thousand

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

s, 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 had a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Air Force to use a GEODSS telescope located on Haleakala,

Maui Maui (; Hawaiian language, Hawaiian: ) is the second largest island in the Hawaiian archipelago, at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2). It is the List of islands of the United States by area, 17th-largest in the United States. Maui is one of ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; ) is an island U.S. state, state of the United States, in the Pacific Ocean about southwest of the U.S. mainland. One of the two Non-contiguous United States, non-contiguous U.S. states (along with Alaska), it is the only sta ...

. GEODSS stands for Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance and these wide field Air Force telescopes were designed to optically observe Earth orbital spacecraft. The NEAT team designed a CCD camera and computer system for the GEODSS telescope. The CCD camera format was 4096 × 4096

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...

s and the field of view was 1.2° × 1.6°. Beginning in April 2001, the Samuel Oschin telescope ( aperture Schmidt telescope at

) was also put into service to discover and track near-Earth objects. This telescope was equipped with a camera containing 112 CCDs each 2400 × 600. This was the telescope that produced the images leading to the discovery of

50000 Quaoar Quaoar ( minor-planet designation: 50000 Quaoar) is a ringed dwarf planet in the Kuiper Belt, a ring of many icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. It has an elongated ellipsoidal shape with an average diameter of , about half the size of the d ...

in 2002, and 90377 Sedna in 2003 (published 2004) and the

dwarf planet A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be hydrostatic equilibrium, gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve clearing the neighbourhood, orbital dominance like the ...

Eris. In addition to discovering thousands of

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s, NEAT was also credited with the co-discovery (recovery) of periodic

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

54P/de Vico-Swift-NEAT and of the high proper motion

Teegarden's star Teegarden's Star (''SO J025300.5+165258'', ''2MASS J02530084+1652532'', ''LSPM J0253+1652'') is an stellar classification, M-type red dwarf star in the constellation Aries (constellation), Aries, from the Solar System. Although it is L ...

. The C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) comet was discovered on August 24, 2001 by NEAT. An asteroid was named in its honour, 64070 NEAT, in early 2005.

Discoveries

1996 PW was discovered on 1996 August 9 by a NEAT automated search camera on

Haleakalā Haleakalā (; Hawaiian: ), or the East Maui Volcano, is a massive, active shield volcano that forms more than 75% of the Hawaiian Islands, Hawaiian Island of Maui. The western 25% of the island is formed by another volcano, Mauna Kahalawai, als ...

. It was the first object that was not an active comet discovered on an orbit typical of a long-period comets.Weissman, P. R. & Levison, H. F. (1997)
Origin and evolution of the unusual object 1996 PW: Asteroids from the Oort cloud?
''The Astrophysical Journal'', 488, L133–L136 This raised the possibility it was an extinct comet or an unusual asteroid.

References

External links

Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
{{Authority control Astronomical surveys Asteroid surveys Astronomical discoveries by institution * Jet Propulsion Laboratory Near-Earth object tracking Palomar Observatory

History

Discoveries

See also

References

External links