After discussing what to do to ensure that an important NEO is adequately monitored (see "news archive"), we will now present a possible strategy to improve the orbit of old objects, that have not...

The observational component of NEO science is an extremely important part of the impact mitigation effort, since observations are the input data for all the computational models used to predict...

The ESA Optical Ground Station has quickly become a major asset for the NEO Coordination Centre, thanks to the many nights devoted to observing asteroids. It is located at an altitude of 2400 m on...

Spotting Earth-threatening asteroids is tough partly because the sky is so big. But insects offer an answer, since they figured out long ago how to look in many directions at once.

Each year, astronomers worldwide discover over 1000 new asteroids or other space rocks that could strike our planet. And if one is spotted heading towards Earth, experts working in ESA and national...

One of the major goals of the ESA NEO Coordination Centre is to focus observations on objects with non-zero impact probabilities. When an asteroid quickly becomes very faint just after discovery...

An object discovered on 3 October 2015, temporarily designated WT1190F by the observers, will enter the Earth's atmosphere on 13 November. It was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey...

​​​​​​The impact of WT1190F in the Indian Ocean on 13 November (see our news item on 22 October) provided an excellent opportunity to simulate the observational sequence that needs to be triggered...

Asteroid 2016 RB1 has hit the news because of a peculiar close passage on 7 September 2016 at 19:20 CEST. About the size of a cottage, the asteroid flew past our planet at an altitude of 34000 km,...

The number of known near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) has just surpassed the threshold of 15000. That is a 50% increase over the number known in 2013, when we posted a similar news item on our portal for...

The word "precovery" has entered the astronomical jargon rather recently but it quickly grew in popularity among asteroid hunters. It refers to the finding of an archival observation of an object...

NELIOTA is an activity initiated by the European Space Agency (ESA), which was recently launched at the National Observatory of Athens. The project aims to count and characterise the number and...

An international campaign has revealed that an asteroid will come within 44 000 km of our planet in October, providing a rare opportunity for intensive studies. Astronomers recently spotted...

As part of an international observing campaign, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has been imaged during our normal monthly observing run on 16 September with the OGS telescope in Tenerife. In the attached...

A few weeks ago the Pan-STARRS survey discovered a new NEO, temporarily identified as P10G8tt and then formally designated 2018 AM12. Follow-up observations over the next few days allowed the...

During the first month of 2018 two objects reached a Torino Scale level of 1, and attracted the attention of observers with the goal of collecting additional observations necessary to remove the...

At approximately 09:30 UT on 14 April 2018 the Catalina Sky Survey, in Arizona, discovered a bright magnitude 15 object moving at a sky speed of 10" per minute, in the constellation Libra. ...

Every few hours observing the Moon, ESA’s ‘NELIOTA’ project discovers a brilliant flash of light across its surface – the result of an object hurtling through space and striking our unprotected...

New observations of asteroid Apophis rule out any chance of impact for at least a century

ESA’s Planetary Defence Office has just released a new NEOCC web portal

Additional information

Detecting an asteroid beyond telescope normal operation

First light of ESA's Test-Bed Telescope in Chile

NEOCC observations help in nailing down the orbit of 2021 PH27

On 19 October the Pan-STARRS telescope, one of the NASA-funded surveys dedicated to discovering new NEOs, found an object that proved to be extremely unique: for the first time, an asteroid...

ESA has inaugurated the new building for the NEOCC at ESRIN

NEOCC portal provides automated access to most of its data

The importance of accurate star catalogues and image archives for Planetary Defence

NEO Chronology Last update: 2021-11-01 06:00 UTC The updating of the NEO Chronology is currently on hold. Courtesy of Karel A. van der Hucht Last version 121.0 Download:.PDF For an explanation...

Typical behaviour of a non-impacting object in the risk list

Large NEA steadily going out of the long-term risk list

Riskiest asteroid in the last months removed from the risk list

The image archive with capabilities to search and download selected image data

2021 PDC Impact Excercise

Last update: 2021-04-28 14:30 UTC This webpage does not describe a real potential asteroid impact. The information on this page is fictional and provided only to support an emergency response...

This new astronomical tool gives the user the possibility to visualise NEO orbits and asteroids collections in full detail within a highly configurable 3D environment

Event to be held at ESOC (Germany) on 12-14 December 2022

October marks the first decade of the NEOCC portal

The object produced a bright fireball over the Great Lakes area

Aegis, a more performant and precise OD/IM software