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Catalina Sky Survey

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Catalina Sky Survey is a project to discover comets and asteroids, and to search for Near-Earth objects. More specifically, to search for potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), that may pose a threat of impact.

Mission

The NEO Observations Program (NEOO) is a result of a 1998 congressional directive to NASA to begin a program to identify 1 kilometer or larger objects to around 90 percent confidence level or better. The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) and its affiliated Siding Spring Survey (SSS) are carrying out searches for NEOs, contributing to the Congressionally mandated goal.

In addition to identifying impact risks, there are other benefits to this project. For example, humans can improve the known population distribution in the main belt, find the cometary distribution at larger perihelion distances, determining the distribution of NEOs as a product of collisional history and transport to the inner solar system, and identifying potential targets for flight projects.

Techniques

CSS utilizes three telescopes, a 1.5 meter (60 inch) f/ 2 telescope on the peak of Mt. Lemmon, a 68 cm (27 inch) f/ 1.9 Schmidt telescope near Mt. Bigelow (both in the Tucson, AZ area) and a 0.5 meter (20 inch) Uppsala Schmidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. All three sites use identical, thermo-electrically cooled cameras and common software that was written by the CSS team. The cameras are cooled to approximately -100C so their dark current is about 1 electron per hour. These 4096x4096 pixel cameras provide a field of view (FOV) of 1 degree square on with the 1.5-m telescope and nearly 9 square degrees with the Catalina Schmidt. Nominal exposures are 30 seconds and the 1.5-m can reach objects fainter than 21.5V in that time.

CSS typically operates every clear night with the exception of a few nights centered on the full moon.

Results

Number of NEOs detected by various projects.

In 2005, the Catalina Sky Survey became the most prolific NEO survey surpassing Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) in total number of NEOs and PHAs discovered each year since. CSS discovered 310 NEOs in 2005, 396 in 2006, 466 in 2007, and in 2008 564 NEOs were found.[1]

Notable discoveries

Near missed Mars on January 9, 2008 [2] [3]
Close approached Earth on January 29, 2008 [4]
Struck Earth on October 7, 2008 [5]

CSS/SSS team

The CSS team is headed by Ed Beshore of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona.

The full team is:

In Australia:

Educational outreach

The CSS has helped with Astronomy Camp showing campers how they detect NEO's. They even played a role in an astrophotography exercise with the 2006 Adult Astronomy Camp ending up with a picture that was featured on Astronomy Picture of the Day.[6]

References

  1. ^ NEO discovery statistics from JPL. Shows the number of asteroids of various types (potentially hazardous, size > 1 km, etc.) that different programs have discovered, by year.
  2. ^ "Catalina Sky Survey Discovers Space Rock That Could Hit Mars". Retrieved 2007-12-22.
  3. ^ Steve Chesley, Paul Chodas and Don Yeomans (January 9, 2008). "2007 WD5 Mars Collision Effectively Ruled Out - Impact Odds now 1 in 10,000". NASA/JPL Near-Earth Object Program Office. Retrieved 2008-01-09.
  4. ^ "Asteroid to Miss Earth Tonight". Washington Post. January 28, 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-28.
  5. ^ "Asteroid to be harmless fireball over Earth". CNN. October 6, 2008. Retrieved 2008-10-07.
  6. ^ http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap060831.html

See also

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