* Astronomy

NOAO: Student's Work Helps to Detect Near Earth Asteroids

An asteroid impact with the earth can really ruin your day: just consider the dinosaurs. Most asteroids, also known as minor planets, orbit the sun beyond the planet Mars and present no danger, but there is a class of asteroids whose orbits cross the orbit of the earth. If one of these asteroids and the earth are at the same point in their orbits at the same time, a collision could occur. Called Near Earth Objects (NEOs), astronomers are interested in discovering as many of these as possible, and then tracking them in order to compute more accurate orbits. In this way, if a potential future collision were to be identified many years in advance, space probes could carry out steps to tweak the path of the NEO and deflect the collision. A program to track NEOs is being carried out at NOAO by Mark Trueblood with Robert Crawford (Rincon Ranch Observatory) and Larry Lebofsky (Planetary Science Institute). And last summer, a Beloit College student, Morgan Rehnberg, has developed a computer program (PhAst), available via the web, to help with this effort.
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