7-11 July 2014
Africa/Johannesburg timezone
<a href="http://events.saip.org.za/internalPage.py?pageId=16&confId=34"><font color=#0000ff>SAIP2014 Proceedings published on 17 April 2015</font></a>

Characterization of Potentially Hazardous Near-Earth Asteroids

10 Jul 2014, 11:10
20m
D Les 203

D Les 203

Oral Presentation Track D1 - Astrophysics Astro

Speaker

Prof. Henry Throop (University of Pretoria)

Abstract content <br> &nbsp; (Max 300 words)<br><a href="http://events.saip.org.za/getFile.py/access?resId=0&materialId=0&confId=34" target="_blank">Formatting &<br>Special chars</a>

In recent years, automated surveys have discovered several thousand near-earth asteroids (NEAs) whose orbits cross that of the Earth. Many of these are potentially hazardous due to their collision risk with Earth, as evidenced by the K-T impactor 65 Mya, and the Chelyabinsk impactor over Russia in February 2013. However, very little is known about the size, composition, or history of the vast majority of these discovered objects. Here we report on results of 7 night of observations of NEAs from the SAAO 1m telescope at Sutherland. We expect to present light curves and inferred physical properties for roughly 10 never-before studied NEAs, and present improved orbital elements for a similar number of objects.

Our results will help inform future NASA-SA collaboration on NASA’s ‘Asteroid Grand Challenge’ program. This work is supported by NASA.

Level for award<br>&nbsp;(Hons, MSc, <br> &nbsp; PhD)?

None

Apply to be<br> considered for a student <br> &nbsp; award (Yes / No)?

No

Would you like to <br> submit a short paper <br> for the Conference <br> Proceedings (Yes / No)?

Yes

Primary author

Prof. Henry Throop (University of Pretoria)

Co-author

Mr Daniel Morris (University of Pretoria)

Presentation Materials

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