Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research

Last updated
Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research
Alternative namesLINEAR
Coordinates 33°49′05″N106°39′33″W / 33.8181°N 106.6592°W / 33.8181; -106.6592 OOjs UI icon edit-ltr-progressive.svg
Observatory code 704
Website www.ll.mit.edu/impact/watch-potentially-hazardous-asteroids
[ edit on Wikidata]
Number of NEOs detected by various projects: .mw-parser-output .legend{page-break-inside:avoid;break-inside:avoid-column}.mw-parser-output .legend-color{display:inline-block;min-width:1.25em;height:1.25em;line-height:1.25;margin:1px 0;text-align:center;border:1px solid black;background-color:transparent;color:black}.mw-parser-output .legend-text{} LINEAR NEAT Spacewatch LONEOS CSS Pan-STARRS NEOWISE All others NEA by survey.png
Number of NEOs detected by various projects:
  LINEAR
   NEAT
   Spacewatch
   LONEOS 		   CSS
   Pan-STARRS
   NEOWISE
   All others

The Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project is a collaboration of the United States Air Force, NASA, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory for the systematic detection and tracking of near-Earth objects. LINEAR was responsible for the majority of asteroid discoveries from 1998 until it was overtaken by the Catalina Sky Survey in 2005. [1] As of 15 September 2011, LINEAR had detected 231,082 new small Solar System bodies, of which at least 2,423 were near-Earth asteroids and 279 were comets. [2] The instruments used by the LINEAR program are located at Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site (ETS) on the White Sands Missile Range (WSMR) near Socorro, New Mexico.

Contents

History

In the late 1970s, the Lincoln Laboratory's Experimental Test Site facility (observatory code 704) was built at White Sands Missile Range. [3] [4] The project's prototype used low-light video cameras. [5] In 1994 a new proposal was made for automated detection of asteroids, this time using newer digital detector technology. [6] The LINEAR project began operating a near-Earth object discovery facility in 1996 using a 1.0 m (39 in) aperture telescope designed for the Air Force Space Command's Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance (GEODSS). The wide-field Air Force telescopes were designed for optical observation of Earth-orbiting spacecraft. Initial field tests used a 1024 × 1024 pixel charge-coupled device (CCD) detector. While this CCD detector filled only about one fifth of the telescope's field of view, four near-earth objects were discovered. A 1960 × 2560 pixel CCD which covered the telescope's two-square degree field of view was then installed, and both detectors were used in later tests. [7]

The first LINEAR telescope became fully operational in March 1998. [8] Beginning in October 1999, a second 1.0 m telescope was added to the search effort. [9] In 2002, a 0.5 m (20 in) telescope equipped with the original CCD was brought on-line to provide follow-up observations for the discoveries made by the two search telescopes. [10] This allowed about 20% more of the sky to be searched each night. Data recorded by the telescopes is sent to a Lincoln Laboratory facility at Hanscom Air Force Base in Lexington, Massachusetts for processing. Detections are then forwarded to the Minor Planet Center. [2]

Discoveries

Minor planets discovered: 147,707  [11]
see List of minor planets § Main index

In addition to discovering more than 140,000 minor planets, LINEAR is also credited with the discovery, or co-discovery, or rediscovery of several periodic comets, including 11P/Tempel–Swift–LINEAR, 158P/Kowal-LINEAR, 160P/LINEAR (LINEAR 43), 165P/LINEAR (LINEAR 10), and 176P/LINEAR (LINEAR 52, 118401 LINEAR: one of only five objects classified both as comets and asteroids). Other objects discovered include (137108) 1999 AN10 , (179806) 2002 TD66 , and 2004 FH. One of LINEAR's discoveries (231937) 2001 FO32 passed near the Earth on 21 March, 2021 [12]

See also

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<span class="nowrap">(231937) 2001 FO<sub>32</sub></span> Asteroid

(231937) 2001 FO32 is a near-Earth asteroid classified as a potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo group. With an estimated diameter around 550 m (1,800 ft), it was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research at Socorro, New Mexico on 23 March 2001. The asteroid safely passed by Earth on 21 March 2021 16:03 UTC from a closest approach distance of 0.0135 AU (2.02 million km; 1.25 million mi), or 5.25 lunar distances (LD). During the day before closest approach, 2001 FO32 reached a peak apparent magnitude of 11.7 and was visible to ground-based observers with telescope apertures of at least 20 cm (8 in). It is the largest and one of the fastest asteroids to approach Earth within 10 LD (3.8 million km; 2.4 million mi) in 2021.

References

  1. ↑ "NEO Discovery Statistics". NASA Near Earth Object Program. Archived from the original on 2004-05-13. Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  2. 1 2 "MIT Lincoln Laboratory: LINEAR". MIT Lincoln Laboratory. Archived from the original on 2017-07-24. Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  3. ↑ Beatty, D. E.; Sorvari, J. M.; Taff, L. G. (1980). "Artificial satellites, minor planets, and the ETS". NASA Sti/Recon Technical Report N. 81: 12143. Bibcode:1980STIN...8112143B.
  4. ↑ "LINEAR – Experimental Test Site". Lincoln Laboratory, MIT. Archived from the original on 26 June 2017. Retrieved 3 November 2016.
  5. ↑ Taff, L. G. (1981). "A new asteroid observation and search technique". Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific. 93: 658. Bibcode:1981PASP...93..658T. doi: 10.1086/130905 .
  6. ↑ Tennyson, Peter D.; Rork, Eugene W.; Kostishack, Daniel F. (1994). "Applying electro-optical space surveillance technology to the detection of near-Earth asteroids". Proceedings of SPIE. Instrumentation in Astronomy VIII. 2198: 1286. Bibcode:1994SPIE.2198.1286T. doi:10.1117/12.176813. S2CID   129557577.
  7. ↑ "Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR)". NASA Near Earth Object Program. Archived from the original on 2004-01-14. Retrieved 2012-01-19.
  8. ↑ Stokes, G. H.; Viggh, H. E. M.; Shelly, F. L.; Blythe, M. S.; Stuart, J. S. (1998). "Results from the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) Project". American Astronomical Society. 30: 1042. Bibcode:1998DPS....30.1607S.
  9. ↑ Elowitz, R. M.; Stokes, G. H.; Bezpalko, M.; Blythe, M. S.; Evans, J. B.; Pearce, E. C.; Sayer, R. W.; Shelly, F. C.; Viggh, H. E. M. (1999). "A Progress Report on the Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research Project". American Astronomical Society. 195: 1531. Bibcode:1999AAS...19510801E.
  10. ↑ Stokes, G. H.; Evans, J. B.; Shelly, F. C. (2002). "LINEAR Search and Operations Experience". American Astronomical Society. 201: 1315. Bibcode:2002AAS...20113003S.
  11. ↑ "Minor Planet Discoverers (by number)". Minor Planet Center. 12 January 2017. Retrieved 2 February 2017.
  12. ↑ February 2021, Patrick Pester-Staff Writer 22 (22 February 2021). "Asteroid the size of the Golden Gate Bridge will whiz past Earth in March". Space.com. Retrieved 2 March 2021.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
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