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Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
 
 
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Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) is a program run by NASA
NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, responsible for the nation's public list of space agencies....
 and Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a List of federally funded research and development centers and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, California, United States....
 to discover near-Earth object
Near-Earth object

A Near-Earth object is a Solar System object whose orbit brings it into close proximity with the Earth.All NEOs have a perihelion < 1.3 Astronomical unit) ....
s. The NEAT system began observations in December 1995.

original principal investigator was Eleanor F. Helin
Eleanor F. Helin

Eleanor Francis Helin was an American astronomer. She was principal investigator of the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory....
, with co-investigators Steven H. Pravdo and David L. Rabinowitz
David L. Rabinowitz

David Lincoln Rabinowitz is a researcher at Yale University. He has built Charge-coupled device cameras and software for the detection of near-Earth asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects, and his research has helped reduce the assumed number of near-Earth asteroids by half, from 1,000-2,000 to 500-1,000 He has also assisted in the detection of...
.

NEAT has a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Air Force to use a GEODSS telescope
Telescope

A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century....
 located on Haleakala
Haleakala

Haleakala , or the East Maui Volcano, is a massive shield volcano that forms more than 75% of the Hawaiian Islands of Maui....
, Maui
Maui

The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at 727.2 square miles and is the List of islands of the United States by area....
, Hawaii
Hawaii

File:Pahoehoe and Aa flows at Hawaii.jpgThe State of Hawaii is a U.S. state in the United States, located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia....
. GEODSS stands for Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance and these wide field Air Force telescopes were designed to optically observe Earth orbital spacecraft.






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Near Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) is a program run by NASA
NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, responsible for the nation's public list of space agencies....
 and Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a List of federally funded research and development centers and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, California, United States....
 to discover near-Earth object
Near-Earth object

A Near-Earth object is a Solar System object whose orbit brings it into close proximity with the Earth.All NEOs have a perihelion < 1.3 Astronomical unit) ....
s. The NEAT system began observations in December 1995.

History

The original principal investigator was Eleanor F. Helin
Eleanor F. Helin

Eleanor Francis Helin was an American astronomer. She was principal investigator of the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory....
, with co-investigators Steven H. Pravdo and David L. Rabinowitz
David L. Rabinowitz

David Lincoln Rabinowitz is a researcher at Yale University. He has built Charge-coupled device cameras and software for the detection of near-Earth asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects, and his research has helped reduce the assumed number of near-Earth asteroids by half, from 1,000-2,000 to 500-1,000 He has also assisted in the detection of...
.

NEAT has a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Air Force to use a GEODSS telescope
Telescope

A telescope is an instrument designed for the observation of remote objects by the collection of electromagnetic radiation. The first known practically functioning telescopes were invented in the Netherlands at the beginning of the 17th century....
 located on Haleakala
Haleakala

Haleakala , or the East Maui Volcano, is a massive shield volcano that forms more than 75% of the Hawaiian Islands of Maui....
, Maui
Maui

The island of Maui is the second-largest of the Hawaiian Islands at 727.2 square miles and is the List of islands of the United States by area....
, Hawaii
Hawaii

File:Pahoehoe and Aa flows at Hawaii.jpgThe State of Hawaii is a U.S. state in the United States, located on an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of Australia....
. GEODSS stands for Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance and these wide field Air Force telescopes were designed to optically observe Earth orbital spacecraft. The NEAT team designed a CCD
Charge-coupled device

A charge-coupled device is an analog signal shift register that enables the transportation of analog signals through successive stages , controlled by a clock signal....
 camera and computer system for the GEODSS telescope. The CCD camera format is 4096 × 4096 pixel
Pixel

In digital imaging, a pixel is the smallest item of information in an image. Pixels are normally arranged in a 2-dimensional grid, and are often represented using dots, squares, or rectangles....
s and the field of view is 1.2° × 1.6°.

Beginning in April 2001, the Samuel Oschin telescope
Samuel Oschin telescope

The Samuel Oschin telescope is a 48-inch aperture Schmidt camera at the Palomar Observatory in northern San Diego County, California. It consists of a 49.75-inch Schmidt corrector plate and a 72-inch mirror....
 (1.2 metre aperture Schmidt telescope at Palomar Observatory
Palomar Observatory

Palomar Observatory is a privately owned observatory located in San Diego County, California, 90 miles southeast of Mount Wilson Observatory, on Palomar Mountain in the Palomar Mountain Range....
) was also put into service to discover and track near-Earth objects. This telescope is equipped with a camera containing 112 CCDs each 2400 × 600. This is the telescope that produced the images leading to the discovery of 50000 Quaoar
50000 Quaoar

50000 Quaoar is a Trans-Neptunian object and potential dwarf planet orbiting the Sun in the Kuiper belt. It was discovered on June 4, 2002 by astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael E....
 in 2002, and 90377 Sedna
90377 Sedna

90377 Sedna is a trans-Neptunian object and a likely dwarf planet, discovered by Michael E. Brown , Chad Trujillo and David L. Rabinowitz on November 14, 2003....
 in 2003 (published 2004) and the dwarf planet
Dwarf planet

A dwarf planet, as defined by the International Astronomical Union , is a celestial body orbiting the Sun that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity but has not Clearing the neighbourhood of planetesimals and is not a natural satellite....
 Eris.

In addition to discovering thousands of asteroid
Asteroid

Asteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids....
s, NEAT is also credited with the co-discovery (recovery) of periodic comet
Comet

A comet is a Small Solar System body that orbits the Sun and, when close enough to the Sun, exhibits a visible coma or a tail?both primarily from the effects of solar radiation upon the Comet nucleus....
 54P/de Vico-Swift-NEAT
54P/de Vico-Swift-NEAT

Comet de Vico or Comet de Vico-Swift is a periodic comet in the solar system first discovered by Father Francesco de Vico on August 23, 1844....
 and of the high proper motion Teegarden's star
Teegarden's star

Teegarden's Star, also known as SO025300.5+165258, is a star in the constellation Aries which was found in 2003 to have a very large proper motion ....
. The C/2001 Q4 (NEAT)
C/2001 Q4 (NEAT)

C/2001 Q4 is a comet with an unusual, almost perpendicular retrograde orbit which brings it into the inner solar system by a deeply southward path....
 comet was discovered on August 24, 2001 by NEAT.

An asteroid was named in its honour, 64070 NEAT
64070 NEAT

64070 NEAT is a Main-belt Asteroid discovered on September 24, 2001 by C. W. Juels and P. R. Holvorcem at Fountain Hills....
, in early 2005.

See also

  • Spaceguard
    Spaceguard

    The term Spaceguard loosely refers to a number of efforts to discover and study near-Earth objects . Arthur C. Clarke coined the term in his novel Rendezvous with Rama where SPACEGUARD was the name of an early warning system created following a catastrophic Impact event....
  • Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer
    Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer

    The Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer is a NASA-funded scientific research project scheduled for launch in November 2009. The satellite will carry a 40 cm infrared-sensitive telescope and provide an "all-sky" survey in the 3 to 25 ?m wavelength range ....


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