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UNIVERSITY OF BUCHAREST
FACULTY OF PHYSICS Guest
2024-11-23 17:39 |
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Conference: Bucharest University Faculty of Physics 2022 Meeting
Section: Nuclear and Elementary Particles Physics
Title:
Characterization of Potential Hazardous Asteroids in terms of Planetary Defence concept
Authors:
Cristian OMAT (1,2), Mirel BIRLAN (1,2)
Affiliation:
1) University of Bucharest, Faculty of Physics, 405 Atomistilor Street, 077125 Măgurele, Ilfov, Romania
2) Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy, 5 Cuțitul de Argint Street, 052034 Bucharest, Romania
E-mail
cristian.omat@gmail.com
Keywords:
Potential Hazardous Asteroids, Planetary Defence, photometry, lightcurve
Abstract:
The Main Asteroid Belt is an area not yet fully explored and the source of Near Earth Asteroids. A special category are the Potential Hazardous Asteroids (PHA) which poses a threat to life on our planet. Even if the impact with a massive asteroid is almost impossible in the next years, the small and medium sized rocks are far more common in the inner Solar System and can do serious damage on interior planets, inclusive Earth.
In recent years, more precisely after the Chelyabinsk event (February 15th, 2013) when an undetected medium sized asteroid (17-20 m) exploded at 30 km above the ground and caused significant human injuries and property damage, humanity has become much more aware of the potential threats that could come from space. The Planetary Defense concept is a worldwide mechanism which monitors the risky asteroids and develops some space programs to deviate them from their dangerous trajectory.
In terms of asteroid monitoring, Romania is represented by the Astronomical Institute of the Romanian Academy, a highly appreciated research institute which provided support for the elaboration of this work. Based on the documentation provided and the logistical support (a professional telescope and a high resolution CCD camera), has been performed the monitorization of 4 NEA's in a few observation nights. The applied procedure: the analyzing the images with the Tycho Tracker, a modern astronomical software based on Synthetic Tracking method with which could be performed the photometry, then determination the lightcurve for each observation night and finally the calculation of the rotation period for each asteroid. The results were conclusive by comparison with the values from Small-Body Database Lookup (NASA).
References:
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[3] Discovery statistics by survey (140m), https://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov/stats/site140.html. NASA.
[4] Tricia Talbert. Five years after the Chelyabinsk meteor: NASA leads efforts in Planetary Defense. NASA
[5] Mirel Birlan, Dan Alin Nedelcu, Adrian Sonka, Marcel Popescu, and Bogdan Dumitru. Observations for secure and recovery Near-Earth Asteroids. Romanian Astronomical Journal, 26(1):25–33, 2016.
[6] D Parrott. Tycho Tracker: A new tool to facilitate the discovery and recovery of asteroids using Synthetic Tracking and modern GPU hardware. Journal of the American Association of Variable Star Observers (JAAVSO), 48(2):262, 2020.
[7] Madalina Trelia, D Nedelcu, Adrian Bruno Sonka, and Mirel Birlan. Estimation of distortion on NEEMO system of telescopes. Romanian Astronomical Journal, 30(3):177–185, 2020.
[8] Small-Body Database Lookup, https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov. NASA
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