Related papers: Don't Forget To Look Up
A meteoroid's hypersonic passage through the Earth's atmosphere results in ablational and fragmentational mass loss. Potential shock waves associated with a parent object as well as its fragments can modify the surrounding atmosphere and…
Recent models of solar system formation suggest that a dynamical instability among the giant planets happened within the first 100 Myr after disk dispersal, perhaps before the Moon-forming impact. As a direct consequence, a bombardment of…
Minor planets 887 Alinda and 2062 Aten are typical near Earth asteroids (NEA). Our previous researches show their possible origin in catastrophic collision near Earth orbit. It is determine the target of present research -- to investigate…
Among the near-Earth object (NEO) population there are comets and active asteroids which are sources of fragments that initially move together; in addition, some NEOs follow orbits temporarily trapped in a web of secular resonances. These…
Many existing optical meteor trajectory estimation methods use the approximation that the velocity of the meteor at the beginning of its luminous phase is equivalent to its velocity before atmospheric entry. Meteoroid kinetic energy loss…
Every year, a few metre-sized meteoroids impact the atmosphere of the Earth. Most (if not all) of them are undetectable before the impact. Therefore, predicting where and how they will fall seems to be an impossible task. In this letter we…
We present our astrometric observations of the small near-Earth object 2011~MD ($H \sim 28.0$), obtained after its very close fly-by to Earth in June 2011. Our set of observations extends the observational arc to $73$ days, and together…
Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) in the 1-100 meter size range are estimated to be $\sim$1,000 times more numerous than the $\sim$15,000 currently-catalogued NEAs, most of which are in the 0.5-10 kilometer size range. Impacts from 10-100 meter…
We explore the idea that detectable excursions in 26Al may arise from direct deposition by any bolide, and excursions in 14C and 10Be abundances in the atmosphere may result from long-period comet impacts. This is very different from the…
Trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) with large perihelion distances ($q > 60$ au) and semi-major axes ($a > 200$ au) provide insights into the early evolution of the solar system and the existence of a hypothetical distant planet. These objects…
The computation of the Minimum Orbital Intersection Distance (MOID) is an old, but increasingly relevant problem. Fast and precise methods for MOID computation are needed to select potentially hazardous asteroids from a large catalogue. The…
In recent work (Milgrom 2009, Blanchet & Novak 2011), the authors showed that MOdified Newton Dynamics (MOND) have a non-negligible secular perturbation effect on planets with large semi-major axes (gaseous planets) in the Solar System.…
Photometric and spectroscopic observations of five nearly parabolic comets with eccentricity larger than 0.99 at heliocentric distances greater than 4 AU were performed. No molecular emission was observed for any studied comet and the…
In this paper we present the observational campaign carried out at ESO NTT and VLT in April and May 2006 to investigate the nature and the structure of the Near Earth Object (144898) 2004 VD17. In spite of a great quantity of dynamical…
The recent discovery of an Earth-sized planet (TOI-700 d) in the habitable zone of an early-type M-dwarf by the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite constitutes an important advance. In this Letter, we assess the feasibility of this planet…
A simulation of de-biased population of NEAs is presented. The numerical integration of modeled orbits reveals geometrical conditions of close approaching NEAs to the Earth. The population with the absolute magnitude up to H=28 is simulated…
Cometary outgassing can produce torques that change the spin state of the nucleus, influencing the evolution and lifetimes of comets (1,2). If these torques spin up the rotation to the point that centripetal forces exceed the material…
As part of NASA's mission to explore habitable planets orbiting nearby stars, this paper explores the detection and characterization capabilities of a 4-m space telescope plus 50-m starshade located at the Earth-Sun L2 point, a.k.a. the New…
We present an analysis of surveying the inner Solar System for objects that may pose some threat to the Earth. Most of the analysis is based on understanding the capability provided by Sentinel, a concept for an infrared space-based…
The Sun is expected to increase its radiant output by about 10% per billion years. The rate at which the radius of the Earth's orbit would need to increase in order to keep the present value of the Sun's radiant flux at the Earth constant…