Catalina Sky Survey is a project to discover comets and asteroids, and to search for Near-Earth objects. More specifically, to search for potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs), that may pose a threat of impact.

Assessment of the threat

Technology has now advanced to a level where humans are capable to inventory the NEO population. Given the catastrophic consequences of a collision with a large object, the NEO Observations Program (NEOO) is a result of a 1998 congressional directive to NASA to begin a program to identify 1 kilometer or larger objects to around 90 percent confidence level or better.

Other reasons

In addition to surveying how many NEOs there are, there are other benefits to this project. For example, humans can improve the known population distribution in the main belt, find the cometary distribution at larger perihelion distances, determining the distribution of NEOs as a product of collisional history and transport to the inner solar system, and identifying potential targets for flight projects.

Mission goal

The Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) and its affiliated Siding Spring Survey (SSS) are carrying out searches for NEOs, contributing to the Congressionally mandated goal.

Survey information

CSS utilizes three telescopes, a 1.5 meter (60 inch) f/ 2 telescope on the peak of Mt. Lemmon, a 68 cm (27 inch) f/ 1.9 Schmidt telescope near Mt. Bigelow and a 0.5 meter (20 inch) Uppsala Schimidt telescope at Siding Spring Observatory in Australia. All three sites use identical, thermo-electrically cooled cameras and common software that was written by the CSS team. The cameras are cooled to approximately -100C so their dark current is about 1 electron per hour. These 4096x4096 pixel cameras provide a field of view (FOV) of 1 degree square on with the 1.5-m telescope and nearly 9 square degrees with the Catalina Schmidt. Nominal exposures are 30 seconds and the 1.5-m can reach objects fainter than 21.5V in that time.

CSS typically operates every clear night with the exception of a few nights centered on the full moon.

In 2005, CSS became the most prolific NEO survey surpassing Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) in total number of NEOs and PHAs discovered each year since. CSS discovered 310 NEOs in 2005, 396 in 2006, and in 2007 466 NEOs were found.

Notable discoveries

• Asteroid , November 20, 2007

Near missed Mars on January 9, 2008 ^{[1] [2]}

• Asteroid , October 112007

Close approached Earth on January 29, 2008 ^[3]

• Asteroid , October 62008

Struck Earth on October 7, 2008 ^[4]

CSS/SSS team

The CSS team is headed by Steve Larson of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona.

The full team is:

• Steve Larson
• Ed Beshore
• Rik Hill
• Richard Kowalski
• Alex Gibbs
• Andrea Boattini
• Al Grauer

In Australia:

• Rob McNaught
• Gordon Garradd
• Donna Burton

References

External links

• Catalina Sky Survey Website
• NEO discovery statistics from JPL. Shows the number of asteroids of various types (potentially hazardous, size > 1 km, etc.) that different programs have discovered, by year.

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