| Title: | OVERVIEW OF RECENT RESEARCH ACTIVITIES ON COSMIC OBJECTS |
| DOI No: | 10.1142/9789812709233_0039 |
| Source: | INTERNATIONAL SEMINAR ON NUCLEAR WAR AND PLANETARY EMERGENCIES 36TH SESSION (pp 321-324)
|
| Author(s): | WALTER F. HUEBNER
Southwest Research Institute, San Antonio, TX, USA
|
| Abstract: | Three spacecraft missions have explored asteroids and comets. NASA's Deep Impact Mission flew by periodic Comet 9P/Tempel 1 and launched a 370 kg copper impactor at its nucleus on 4 July 2005. Dr. M J.S. Belton will report on this. NASA's Stardust mission flew by periodic Comet 81P/Wild 2 and collected samples of dust particles. The dust particles were returned to Earth in a capsule in January 2006 for laboratory analysis. JAXA's Hayabusa spacecraft landed in November 2005 on Asteroid 25143 Itokawa to sample its surface. Dr. H. Yano will report on the exciting findings from this Japanese mission. All of these missions added knowledge and data about the composition and structure of Near-Earth Objects - data that will be needed if we have to mitigate a possible collision of one such object with Earth. In the spring of this year, a conference titled, “Near-Earth Objects Hazard: Knowledge and Action” was held in Belgirate, Italy. I will review discussions at the conference with some emphasis on Asteroid 99942 Apophis that may have the potential of colliding with Earth. Finally, I will report on a NASA Workshop on Near-Earth Objects: Search, Characterization, and Mitigation, conducted in response to a request by the U.S. Congress. |
| Full Text: | View full text in PDF format (206KB) |
| TOC: | Back to Table of Contents |
|
|
