Planetary Defense and the NEO Mission
Cataloging Earth's Nearest Neighbor Asteroids and Comets
Amy Mainzer
UCLA
Sponsored by PSW Science Member A.C. Charania
About the Lecture
From telescopic observations and studies of craters on the Earth and the Moon, we can infer how often asteroid and comet impacts occur on geological timescales. However, this does not address whether a major impact will occur on human timescales. In an effort to answer this question, astronomers are undertaking large telescopic surveys to search for Earth-approaching small bodies. To date, most efforts have focused on collecting observations from ground-based facilities operating at visible wavelengths. A new telescope currently under construction, the Near-Earth Object Surveyor mission, will search the sky at infrared wavelengths that sense the heat emitted from near-Earth asteroids and comets in an effort to constrain their numbers, orbits, and physical properties. This new facility should significantly advance our understanding of the potential for damaging Earth impacts.
Selected Reading & Media References
https://neos.epss.ucla.edu
https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2023PSJ…..4..224M/abstract
About the Speaker
Amy Mainzer is Professor of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, and Principal Investigator for NASA’s NEO Surveyor mission. Previously she was at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, where she proposed and then led the NEOWISE project that repurposed the WISE spacecraft for near-Earth-object science.
Amy’s research centers on infrared astronomy and the measurement of asteroids, comets, and other small solar-system bodies, particularly near-Earth objects (NEOs). A core focus of her research is the use of thermal-infrared observations to determine the sizes and albedos of NEOs and infer their population statistics.
As NEOWISE project leader she guided long-duration survey operations to produce a sustained stream of asteroid and comet measurements forming a very large infrared dataset of their properties. The work expanded and refined thermal-infrared methods for estimating sizes and albedos of NEOs and improved population-level understanding of NEOs. Amy has also played a central role in translating the raw survey data into catalogs now used for science and space situational awareness.
Amy is an author on numerous publications including more than 200 publications in scientific journals.
Among other honors and awards, Amy received the Robert Holland Jr. Award from the Research Corporation for Science Advancement, the NASA JPL Lew Allen Award, a NASA Exceptional Achievement Medal, a NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, a NASA Exceptional Public Service Medal, and she shared numerous NASA Group Achievement Awards for contributions to the Spitzer, WISE, and NEOWISE missions. Amy is an elected Fellow of the American Astronomical Society.
Amy earned a BS in Physics from Stanford University, an MS in Astronomy from Caltech, and a PhD in Astronomy from UCLA.
Speaker’s Social Media Links
https://epss.ucla.edu/amy-mainzer/