THREATS FROM

NEOs

By :
MODERN PUBLIC SCHOOL,
Shalimar bagh,Delhi-88.
A near-Earth object (NEO) is a Solar System object
whose orbit brings it into close proximity with the
Earth.

TYPES

Near Earth Asteroid

Near Earth Comet
Near Earth Meteoroid
 PAST EVENTS AND IMPACTS

☼The Mesozoic Era :-

An asteroid six miles in diameter pummeled Earth in the western Gulf of
Mexico. Enormous mile-high waves flooded continents. For months
thereafter, a curtain of darkness prevailed over Earth. Not only were the
dinosaurs wiped out but 90% of land life.

☼ 1908 Tunguska Event:-

It is now commonly believed that on 30 June 1908 a stony asteroid exploded over Tunguska. The
explosion occurred at a height of 8.5 kilometers. The object that caused the explosion has been
estimated to have had a diameter of 45-70 meters.

☼ 2002 Eastern Mediterranean event :-

On June 6, 2002 an object with an estimated diameter of 10 meters collided with Earth over the
Mediterranean Sea and exploded in mid-air. The energy released was estimated to be equivalent to 26
kilotons of TNT.

☼ 2008 Sudan event :-

A small Near-Earth asteroid 2008 TC3 entered Earth's atmosphere as a meteor above northern Sudan at a
velocity of 12.8 kilometers per second.
☼A recently rediscovered 400-meter Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) is
predicted to pass near the Earth on 13 April 2029.

☼ At a scientific conference dedicated to asteroid and comet security in

the Practical Astronomy Institute in St. Petersburg, one of the
participants said that the 2004 MN4 asteroid could hit Earth in 2035,
wiping out all life on the planet.

☼ Asteroid Apophis, will impact the earth in 2036.

☼On December 12, 2012 the Asteroid Toutatis will be 0.04633

A.U. away from Earth. The plane of Toutatis' orbit is closer
to the plane of the Earth's orbit than any known Earth-
orbit-crossing asteroid. In December 1992, Toutatis made a
close approach to Earth.
 There is a planet that orbits our sun every 3600 years. This
planet has been referred to as Planet X. It gets its name from
being an elusive planet. The first real pictures Planet X were
photographed shortly after January 26, 1983, when NASA
launched the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). The
astronomers calculated that Planet X was over 50 million
miles away from us at that time. In 2004 Planet X was
determined to be only 7 million miles away. It's moving
closer. Confirmation of the tenth planet "Planet X" was
photographed n in Japan on February 28, 2008. Planet X
exists, and it will be here by the end of 2012. Planet X will
appear as two suns in the sky to us, no later than 2011.
Strategies fall into three basic sets: destruction,
delay and deflection.
Destruction concentrates on rendering the
impactor harmless by fragmenting it and scattering
the fragments so that they miss the Earth or burn up
in the atmosphere.
 Delay exploits the fact that both the Earth and the
impactor are in orbit. Delaying, or advancing the
impactor's arrival depending on the exact geometry
 Kinetic Impact
An alternative means of deflecting an asteroid is to attempt to
directly alter its momentum by sending a spacecraft to collide with
the asteroid.
Asteroid gravitational tractor
Here we use a large heavy unmanned spacecraft hovering over an
asteroid to gravitationally pull the latter into a non-threatening orbit.
Using the power of sun
In this, we focus the Sun's rays onto a point on the surface on
an asteroid. The spot where the Sun's rays met would heat up,
blasting particles of the asteroid into space.
1.The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency's (JAXA's) MUSES-C / Hayabusa
launched on May 9, 2003, the spacecraft has succeeded in returning surprising
data on a tiny near-Earth asteroid.

2.The European Space Agency has begun a mission, named Don Quixote, which is
the first real asteroid deflection mission ever designed.

3. Astronomers have been conducting surveys to locate the NEAs. One of the
best-known is the LINEAR which began in 1996. By 2004 LINEAR was
discovering tens of thousands of objects each year and accounting for 70% of
all asteroid detections. LINEAR uses two one-meter telescopes and one half-
meter one based in New Mexico.

4.Spacewatch uses an old 90 centimeter telescope sited at the Kitt Peak

Observatory in Arizona, and is updated with automatic pointing, imaging, and
analysis equipment to search the skies for intruders.

5. Other near-earth asteroid tracking programs include Near-Earth Asteroid

Tracking (NEAT), Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS),
Catalina Sky Survey, Campo Imperator Near-Earth Objects Survey (CINEOS),
Japanese Space guard Association, and Asia go-DLR Asteroid Survey.

6."Spaceguard" is the name for these loosely affiliated programs, some of which
receive NASA funding to meet a U.S. Congressional requirement to detect 90%
of near-earth asteroids over 1 km diameter by 2008.
 NEOs AS SOURCES OF INFORMATION

 Impacts of comet and asteroid rain in the past may have given water and carbon-
based molecules to the Earth's surface.

 NEOs could be most easily exploited for their raw materials.

 These raw materials could be used in developing the space structures and in
generating the rocket fuel.

 By determining the age and composition of the asteroid or the NEO in general, we
might just stumble upon the information regarding a new form of life existing in our
solar system.