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Near Earth Asteroid Characterization for Threat AssessmentPhysical characteristics of NEAs are an essential input to modeling behavior during atmospheric entry and to assess the risk of impact but determining these properties requires a non-trivial investment of time and resources. The characteristics relevant to these models include size, density, strength and ablation coefficient. Some of these characteristics cannot be directly measured, but rather must be inferred from related measurements of asteroids and/or meteorites. Furthermore, for the majority of NEAs, only the basic measurements exist so often properties must be inferred from statistics of the population of more completely characterized objects. The Asteroid Threat Assessment Project at NASA Ames Research Center has developed a probabilistic asteroid impact risk (PAIR) model in order to assess the risk of asteroid impact. Our PAIR model and its use to develop probability distributions of impact risk are discussed in other contributions to PDC 2017 (e.g., Mathias et al.). Here we utilize PAIR to investigate which NEA characteristics are important for assessing the impact threat by investigating how changes in these characteristics alter the damage predicted by PAIR. We will also provide an assessment of the current state of knowledge of the NEA characteristics of importance for asteroid threat assessment. The relative importance of different properties as identified using PAIR will be combined with our assessment of the current state of knowledge to identify potential high impact investigations. In addition, we will discuss an ongoing effort to collate the existing measurements of NEA properties of interest to the planetary defense community into a readily accessible database.
Document ID
20170004625
Acquisition Source
Ames Research Center
Document Type
Conference Paper
Authors
Dotson, Jessie
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA United States)
Mathias, Donovan
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA United States)
Wheeler, Lorien
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Wooden, Diane
(NASA Ames Research Center Moffett Field, CA United States)
Bryson, Kathryn
(Bay Area Environmental Research Inst. Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Ostrowski, Daniel
(Bay Area Environmental Research Inst. Moffett Field, CA, United States)
Date Acquired
May 18, 2017
Publication Date
May 15, 2017
Subject Category
Astrophysics
Report/Patent Number
ARC-E-DAA-TN38814
Meeting Information
Meeting: IAA Planetary Defense Conference
Location: Tokyo
Country: Japan
Start Date: May 15, 2017
End Date: May 19, 2017
Sponsors: International Academy of Astronautics
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX16AO96A
CONTRACT_GRANT: NNX14AR61A
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Public Use Permitted.
Keywords
Asteroid characterization
Threat Assessment
Asteroid
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