Lab6_Near Earth Asteroids

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Red Rocks Community College *

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Astronomy

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Oct 30, 2023

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LAB 6: NEAR EARTH ASTEROIDS 60pts. OBJECTIVES This laboratory is to examine information on Near Earth asteroids and possible collisions. SKILLS/COMPETENCIES  Interpret tables or graphs.  Present data by construction of charts and graphs.  Evaluate the relevancy of data. BACKGROUND ON NEOS AND NEAS Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and Near Earth Asteroids (NEAs) are a special class of comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood. Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago. The giant outer planets (Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune) formed from an agglomeration of billions of comets and the left over bits and pieces from this formation process are the comets we see today. Likewise, today's asteroids are the bits and pieces left over from the initial agglomeration of the inner planets that include Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. As the primitive, leftover building blocks of the solar system formation process, comets and asteroids offer clues to the chemical mixture from which the planets formed some 4.6 billion years ago. If we wish to know the composition of the primordial mixture from which the planets formed, then we must determine the chemical constituents of the leftover debris from this formation process - the comets and asteroids. NASA's search program designed to discover 90% of the NEO population (1 km in diameter or larger) within 10 years is under way. The chart below shows the cumulative total known near-Earth asteroids versus time. NEA Lab 10 pages

NEA Lab 10 pages

LAB FIGURE 1: Near Earth asteroids up through 2005 The upper curve area shows all known near-Earth asteroids while the lower area shows only large near-Earth asteroids. In this context, "large" is defined as an asteroid having an absolute magnitude (H or brightness) of 18.0 or brighter which roughly corresponds to diameters of 1 km or larger. Programs (and year) that search for NEAs include: Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research, LINEAR (1996) Near Earth Asteroid Tracking, NEAT (2001) Spacewatch (1984) Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search , LONEOS (1993) Catalina Sky Surveys, CSS (2003) Japanese Spaceguard Association, JSGA (2000) Italy’s Asiago DLR Asteroid Survey, ADAS (2001) NEA Lab 10 pages

TASK 1: INTERPRETING THE NEA GRAPH 1. (2) a. How many total asteroids were discovered by 2000? b. How many total asteroids were discovered by 2006? 2. (2) a. How many large asteroids were discovered by 2000? b. How many large asteroids were discovered by 2006? 3. (2) What was the average asteroid detection rate from 2000 to 2006 (for all NEA’s)? 4. (2) Assume that the detection rate stays the same. How many total asteroids will be discovered by 2010? 5. (2) a. As more and more of the larger NEAs are discovered, how do you think the shape of the bottom curve will change over to next 10 years? (2)b. The next 50 years? NEA Lab 10 pages

On the next page are the figures showing NEA detections as of June 2013. 6. (2) These graphs are presenting slightly different information than the graph of “Known Near Earth Asteroids” that you looked at before. Please explain the difference. 7. (2) What does Figure 1 show about the rate of discovery for all NEA’s from 2006 to 2013? 8. (2) What does Figure 2 show about the rate of discovery for large NEA’s from 2006 to 2013? 9. (1) Do these updated graphs support your conclusion for questions 5a and 5b? NEA Lab 10 pages

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