The US space agency has deployed its new asteroid monitoring system, Sentry-II. This algorithm, which is more precise than its predecessor, should make it possible to more effectively detect celestial bodies that may represent a threat to the Earth.
the Solar system is crossed by objects of different dimensions that may represent a risk for the Earth. To anticipate a potential asteroid collision with the planet, the Nasa announced, in a press release dated December 6, modernize its monitoring system Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA, ” asteroids close to Earth ”). The agency is deploying Sentry-II, successor to Sentry, which is tasked with tracking and locating the nearest massive objects. The first Sentry program, initiated in 2002, made it possible to identify many objects NEOs in the vicinity of the Solar System.
Influence games
NASA currently accounts for nearly 28,000 asteroids “Close” to Earth, and an additional 3,000 are discovered per year on average. In its press release, the space agency details that unlike the commonplaces established by Hollywood films, asteroids do not have a chaotic course liable to undergo an unexpected deviation from their trajectory. ” Celestial objects passing through the Solar System are subject to the laws of physical and therefore have a predictable route. ”
The trajectory of the NEA is influenced by more massive bodies and the gravitational pull of the Sun or planets. It can also be disturbed byYarkovsky effect : the solar radiation heating the surface facing thestar creates a mechanism of rotation of the object, causing in fact a modification of its movement. Sentry-I did not allow this parameter to be calculated, an aspect that engineers from NASA and Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) wished to resolve by updating the second version.
The Earth Sentinel
While many celestial bodies and objects are detected and tracked in the Solar System, space agencies estimate that only 40% of asteroids over 140 meters are listed and tracked. The Sentry-II algorithm will provide further monitoring of these asteroids, based on observations from telescopes worldwide. Data collected on asteroids are transmitted to the body Minor Planet Center of the’International Astronomical Union (IAU for International Astronomical Union). They are then processed by Sentry-II, carrying out its work of monitoring asteroids by determining hypothetical points of modification of theorbit from racing car.
For now, no asteroid threatens to annihilate Earth (not even the very famous Apophis), but there are many sky watchers sharing the task around the world. In Europe, Vigie-Ciel is a program using various cameras pointed at the celestial vault, the network called Fripon (Fireball Recovery and Inter Planetary Observation Network) to detect penetration into theatmosphere cars and meteorites on the western part of the continent.
Asteroid monitoring is a hot topic, a few weeks after the start of the Dart mission. The latter, launched on November 24, 2021, aims to deflect the near-Earth body (65803) Didymos, the asteroid located almost 472,000,000 kilometers from Earth. The probe Dart will hit Didymos at 23,700 km / h in September 2022 and allow researchers to study the kinetic impact of the collision on the asteroid’s trajectory.
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