July 2020 Newsletter

In the acronym "NEO"the final letter O stands for "Object", because the group is generally understood to include both asteroids and comets that come close to Earth. It is however interesting to note that most aspects of the NEO discovery process we commonly associate with asteroids happened first for comets

On 10 February 1896 at 09:30 a large fireball appeared in the sky over the Spanish capital, Madrid. The bolide exploded at high-altitude and an air-burst was reported by many observers. Slightly more than one minute after the explosion the shock wave reached the city, causing quite some fear among the population.

Current NEO statistics About 4% of the known NEO population is in the risk list. This value has remained roughly constant over the past years even if the discovery rate has increased.

Two large objects have been observed in the month ofJuly. (85989) 1999 JD6 had a distant encounter with the Earth, while the newly discovered asteroid 2015 OL35 entered our priority list for follow-up observations.

August 2023 Newsletter

Close approach fact sheet for asteroid 2010WC9. A small asteroid impacted the Earth on 15 May 2018.