The B612 Asteroid Institute’s Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) project continues to make progress. The acronym for our ADAM project has also evolved (replacing Machine with Mapping). This can be summarized by an article in the Financial Times on the need for mapping the...
Asteroid Institute Mission Director Harold Reitsema recently presented at the National Academies of Science on the work that B612 has done on space-based asteroid observation missions. The National Academies of Sciences has been tasked to explore the capabilities of space-based telescopes, including exploring the relative advantages...
Over the past decade, B612, and now the Asteroid Institute, have argued for the importance of finding and tracking Near Earth Asteroids. Consistent with the Asteroid Day 100X Declaration, we have supported efforts to increase the rate of discovery and tracking of asteroids, from LSST to...
B612 does not endorse the alarming and sensationalist tone (“humankind could be wiped out at any moment”) of an article it contributed to last week. This is completely contrary to B612’s message that we and others are working towards addressing this issue in a methodical way...
[vc_row css_animation="" row_type="row" use_row_as_full_screen_section="no" type="full_width" angled_section="no" text_align="left" background_image_as_pattern="without_pattern" css=".vc_custom_1512558657854{margin-top: 50px !important;}"][vc_column][vc_column_text]This year marked a 15-year milestone since we began protecting the Earth from asteroid impacts. With the support of a worldwide community of donors, B612 has educated, advocated, and worked towards science and technology solutions...
Harold Reitsema, Asteroid Institute Mission Director, looks at the updated 2017 report from NASA on the threat from near-Earth objects (NEOs). NASA's Near-Earth Object Science Definition Team has released an update to a previous report on the threat posed by near-Earth objects that was released in 2003[1]. This report provides a more thorough...
The field of planetary defense has grown dramatically since 2012, and the scope of B612's activities has grown along with it. With a new year underway, I want to take a moment to recap a few milestones already achieved this year. I also want to report...
B612 published an OpEd in Space News discussing the milestone reached with NEOCam and the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) potentially able to track 90 percent of asteroids larger than 140 meters and declaring our support for NEOCam’s construction. The full text is below: There is...
We have good news to report. The field of Planetary Defense has taken a step forward with the announcement of the formation of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) within NASA. This new office was created in response to the highly critical report by the...
WASHINGTON — A privately funded space telescope originally proposed to search for larger near-Earth asteroids may also be effective in detecting smaller, but more numerous and potentially more dangerous, such objects. In a presentation at the International Academy of Astronautics’ Planetary Defense Conference in Frascati, Italy,...