Related papers: Detecting Earth's Temporarily-Captured Natural Sat…
Earth's temporarily-captured orbiters (TCOs) are a sub-population of near-Earth objects (NEOs). TCOs can provide constraints for NEO population models in the 1--10-metre-diameter range, and they are outstanding targets for in situ…
(modified from published version) Twelve years ago the Catalina Sky Survey discovered Earth's first known natural geocentric object other than the Moon, a few-meter diameter asteroid designated 2006 RH120. Despite significant improvements…
Objects gravitationally captured by the Earth-Moon system are commonly called temporarily captured orbiters (TCOs), natural Earth satellites, or minimoons. TCOs are a crucially important subpopulation of near-Earth objects (NEOs) to…
Temporarily Captured Orbiters (TCOs) are Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) which make a few orbits of Earth before returning to heliocentric orbits. Only one TCO has been observed to date, 2006 RH120, captured by Earth for one year before escaping.…
Missions to rendezvous with or capture an asteroid present significant interest both from a geophysical and safety point of view. They are key to the understanding of our solar system are as well stepping stones for interplanetary human…
We have for the first time calculated the population characteristics of the Earth's irregular natural satellites (NES) that are temporarily captured from the near-Earth-object (NEO) population. The steady-state NES size-frequency and…
The nature and physical properties of asteroids, in particular those orbiting in the near-Earth space, are of scientific interest and practical importance. Exoplanet surveys can be excellent resources to detect asteroids, both already known…
Radiolocation methods of probing minor celestial bodies (asteroids) by the nanosecond pulses can be used for monitoring of near-Earth space with the purpose of identification of hazardous cosmic objects able to impact the Earth. Development…
Large or even medium sized asteroids impacting the Earth can cause damage on a global scale. Existing and planned concepts for finding near-Earth objects (NEOs) with diameter of 140 m or larger would take ~15-20 years of observation to find…
We have performed a simulation of a next generation sky survey's (Pan-STARRS 1) efficiency for detecting Earth-impacting asteroids. The steady-state sky-plane distribution of the impactors long before impact is concentrated towards small…
A lightcurve of the eclipsing binary CM Draconis has been analyzed for the presence of transits of planets of size >= 2.5 Earth-radii (Re), with periods of 60 days or less, and in co-planar orbits around the binary system. About 400 million…
Context. Detecting regular dips in the light curve of a star is an easy way to detect the presence of an orbiting planet. COROT is a Franco-European mission launched at the end of 2006, and one of its main objectives is to detect planetary…
The Taiwan-America Occultation Survey (TAOS) aims to determine the number of small icy bodies in the outer reach of the Solar System by means of stellar occultation. An array of 4 robotic small (D=0.5 m), wide-field (f/1.9) telescopes have…
We consider a network of telescopes capable of scanning all the observable sky each night and targeting Near-Earth objects (NEOs) in the size range of the Tunguska-like asteroids, from 160 m down to 10 m. We measure the performance of this…
Synthetic tracking (ST) has emerged as a potent technique for observing fast-moving near-Earth objects (NEOs), offering enhanced detection sensitivity and astrometric accuracy by avoiding trailing loss. This approach also empowers small…
The Mission Accessible Near-Earth Objects Survey (MANOS) aims to physically characterize sub-km Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). We report first photometric results from the survey which began in August, 2013. Photometric observations were…
Nearby giant exoplanets offer an opportunity to search for moons (exomoons) orbiting them. Here, we present a simulation framework for investigating the possibilities of detecting exomoons via their astrometric signal in planet-to-star…
In the past two decades an increasing interest in discovering Near Earth Objects has been noted in the astronomical community. Dedicated surveys have been operated for data acquisition and processing, resulting in the present discovery of…
The Near Earth Object Surveyor mission has a requirement to find two-thirds of the potentially hazardous asteroids larger than 140 meters in size. In order to determine the mission's expected progress toward this goal during design and…
Large-area surveys operating at mid-infrared wavelengths have proven to be a valuable means of discovering and characterizing minor planets. Through the use of radiometric models, it is possible to derive physical properties such as…