REFERENCE INFORMATION ON NEAR EARTH OBJECTS AND SPACE DEBRIS

BOOKS

• A. Bevan and K. McNamara, "Australia's Meteorite Craters"
• T. Gehrels, "Hazards Due to Comets and Asteroids"
• MIT Students, "Project Icarus"
• G.L. Verschuur, "Impact!"
• H.J. Melosh, "Impact Cratering"
• K. Mark, "Meteorite Craters"
• O.R. Norton, "Rocks from Space"
• D. Steel, "Rogue Asteroids and Doomsday Comets"
• J. Erickson, "Target Earth!"
• D. Steel, "Target Earth"
• K. McNamara and A. Bevan, "TEKTITES"
• F. Heide and F. Wlotzka, "Meteorites"
• D.W.R. McKinley, "Meteor Science and Engineering"

"Artificial Space Debris", Nicholas L Johnson and Darren S McKnight, published by Orbit Book Company Florida, 1987, ISBN 0-89464-012-7. This was the first published book completely devoted to Orbital Space Debris. "Orbital Debris: A Technical Assessment",(US) National Research Council, published by National Academy Press Washington DC, 1995, ISBN 0-309-05125-8 or ISBN 0-89464-012-7. This book can be accessed at National Academies Press.

JOURNALS

• "Advances in Space Research", (published by Pergamon), is a good source of papers on orbital space debris, and has devoted several past issues exclusively to this topic.

• "Orbital Debris Quarterly News",(published by the NASA Orbital Debris Program Office). Current and past issues may be downloaded from:

• "Space Debris", An international journal devoted to Space Debris Research, Technology and Policy. Available electronically via Kluwer Online at Space Debris. Unfortunately, only 2 volumes of this journal were ever published.

PAPERS

• "Collision Frequency of Artificial Satellites: The Creation of a Debris Belt", Donald J Kessler and Burton G Cour-Palais, Journal of Geophysical Research, v83(#A6) June 1, 1978, pp2637-2646. This is the classic/historical paper on the problems of orbital space debris by two pioneers in the field

WEB LINKS

PLANETARY DEFENCE

The paper by Major Lindley N. Johnson in which the term "Planetary Defense" was first coined (1993):
• Preparing for Planetary Defense: Detection and Interception of Asteroids on Collision Course with Earth (2.8MB Word Document)


Proceedings of the Planetary Defense Workshop held at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California in 1995 may be found at:
• www.llnl.gov/planetary/


An interesting research paper presented to the USAF (1996) on planetary defense is located at:
• Planetary Defense: Catastrophic Health Insurance for Planet Earth


From the Federation of American Scientists web site:
• Another version of Major Johnson's paper to Spacecast 2020


From the Aerospace Power Journal - Summer 1997:
• Planetary Defense: Department of Defense Cost for the Detection, Exploration and Rendezvous Mission of Near-Earth Onbjects


A Policy Position Paper on NEO protection from the American Insitute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (2004):
• Protecting Earth from Asteroids and Comets (160KB pdf file)

NEAR EARTH OBJECTS

The United Kingdom (UK) Near Earth Object Information Centre was set up in response to a British government inquiry in the cosmic impact hazard. It may be found at:
• www.nearearthobjects.co.uk


This site has available a copy of the "Report of the Task Force on Potentially Hazardous Near Earth Objects" at:
• www.nearearthobjects.co.uk/report/resources_task_intro.cfm
  (This is a very well considered and well written overview, and is available in pdf format.)
  
  
  A NASA "Study to Determine the Feasibility of Extending the Search for Near-Earth Objects to Smaller Limiting Diameters". This study contains data on Near Earth Asteroid populations and expected impact frequencies (August 22, 2003 - 166 pages [1.2MB pdf]):
• Report of the Near_Earth Object Science Definition Team
  
  
  The Cambridge Conference Network (CCN) moderated by anthropologist Dr Benny Peiser is a newsletter devoted to NEO's, catastrophism and related studies. Archives of the newsletters are maintained at:
• abob.libs.uga.edu/bobk/cccmenu.html


NASA maintains a news page on Asteroid and Comet Impact Hazards:
• impact.arc.nasa.gov/news/index.html


The Planetary Society maintains a web page of NEO news:
• neo.planetary.org/NEONews

SPACEGUARD

Here we list the various global organisations concerned with the detection and analysis of near Earth objects.

The Spaceguard Foundation is an international organisation involving people concerned about the cosmic impact hazard. The home of the Spaceguard Foundation was first established in 1996 in Rome. It has since moved a few kilometres to the ESA (European Space Agency) European Space Research Institute at Frascati.

The home page of the Spaceguard Foundation (the Spaceguard Central Node or SCN) can be found at:
• spaceguard.ias.rm.cnr.it/index.html


The online magazine of the SCN is called the Tumbling Stone and may be found at:
• spaceguard.ias.rm.cnr.it/tumblingstone/index.html


Major NEO search groups are:


SPACEWATCH
University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory

• www.lpl.arizona.edu/spacewatch


LINEAR
Massachussets Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory

• www.ll.mit.edu/LINEAR/


LONEOS
Lowell Observatory, Flagstaff, Arizona

• www.lowell.edu/users/elgb/loneos_disc.html


NEAT
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

• neat.jpl.nasa.gov


CSS (Catalina Sky Survey)
University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
This group now has a southern NEO survey at Siding Spring in NSW, Australia, using the 0.5m Uppsala 0.5m Schnidt telescope

• www.lpl.arizona.edu/css/


NEO Analysis

All observations are sent to the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Minor Planet Center at:
• cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/mpc.html


Orbital analysis is carried out at two major centres:


JPL at:

• neo.jpl.nasa.gov


Italy at NEODyS (Near Earth Objects - Dynamic Site) site from the University of Pisa:
• 131.114.72.13/cgi-bin/neodys/neoibo


Spaceguard UK may be found at:

• www.spaceguarduk.com


The German spaceguard node is located at:

• spaceguard.dlr.de/sgf/default_eng.htm


The Russians have set up a counterpart to Spaceguard called Space Shield:

• www.snezhinsk.ru/asteroids/

(Unfortunately the Russian web site tends to appear and disappear with some regularity - it may be better to use a search engine to find information on Space Shield.)

Michael Paine hosts an unofficial Australian "spaceguard" site at:

• www1.tpgi.com.au/users/tps-seti/spacegd.htmlv

NATURAL SPACE DEBRIS (METEOROIDS and INTERPLANETARY DUST)

The International Meteor Organisation maintains a comprehensive web site at:

• www.imo.net

ORBITAL SPACE DEBRIS

NASA Johnson Space Center Orbital Debris Program Office is at:

• www.orbitaldebris.jsc.nasa.gov


ESA Space Debris program:

• esapub.esrin.esa.it/pff/pffv4n4/ppfflunr4.htm


Australian Space Academy