With a mandate from the UN, ESA and other space agencies from around the world are about to establish a high-level group to help coordinate global response should a threatening asteroid ever be...

The first recovery campaign carried out by the ESA NEO Coordination Centre in coordination with ESO, using the Very Large Telescope (VLT) (VLT telescopes on the Paranal mountain in Chile (credit:...

In a fruitful collaboration between ESA and a group of amateur astronomers, the first comet was discovered by the so-called TOTAS survey. The comet is called P/2014 C1 (TOTAS) and has an orbit...

If an asteroid is discovered which could come very close to Earth, it is important to coordinate observational activities quickly to better know its precise flyby distance.This is illustrated by...

On 8 November 2013 asteroid 2013 TV135 has been removed from the Risk Page. The non-zero impact probability spotted by monitoring systems just after its discovery (on 8 October 2013) dropped...

Soon after having been spotted in the sky on 8 October 2013 from the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (Ukraine), asteroid 2013TV135 topped the Risk Page. Being a relatively large object (500 m in...

Last month, ESA's near-Earth asteroid coordination centre triggered a series of European observations that confirmed an unknown object was, in fact, of human origin. The confirmation was the...

The number of known Near-Earth Asteroids has just overcome 10,000 units! This result represents an important achievement if one thinks that over the one hundred years between 1898 (when the first...

Although Gaia's primary mission goal is the precise measurement of star positions and not observing NEOs, nevertheless it is likely to produce a significant contribution to NEO detection. This is...

The data gathered by the US WISE mission have been released as public domain on 14 March 2012. This release provides improved calibration and processing algorithms.

While the sky becomes more and more continuously scanned by ground and space-based NEO surveys, discovering objects in unusual orbital configurations represents the new frontier. Their dynamics...

In a recent close-ish flyby, asteroid 2002 GT was studied in detail for the first time by a network of European astronomers. The observations were coordinated by ESA's asteroid centre in Italy, and...

A new series of images from Gemini Observatory shows Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) heading toward an extremely close rendezvous with the Sun. The images have been takenbetween February and May 2013 and...

An interesting connection between Earth Observation and NEO monitoring activities has been unveiled through the NEO Coordination Centre participation at the "Big Data From Space" meeting, held at...

ESA today inaugurated a new hub that will strengthen Europe's contribution to the global hunt for asteroids and other hazardous natural objects that may strike Earth. Near-Earth Objects, or NEOs,...

In February, a speeding asteroid slammed into our atmosphere and exploded high over Russia's Ural region (on the left- Asteroid trace over Chelyabinsk, Russia, on 15 February 2013), injuring...

In the last observing slot the TOTAS survey found another NEO. This is the fifth NEO found in about 300 hours of survey time, which is a good result considering the field of view of the telescope....

On 15 Feb 2013, a very large fireball was reported over Chelyabinsk, Russia. Peter Brown from the University of Western Ontario, Canada, analyzed infrasound measurements of the event and deduced...

A little-known asteroid will skim past Earth on 15 February, passing just 28 000 km from our planet. The 50 m-diameter chunk of space rock was discovered last year by ESA-sponsored amateur...

During the last observing run with the ESA 1-m telesope on Tenerife (the OGS = Optical Ground Station) the SSA-NEO programme successfully recovered three 'lost' NEOs. In addition, one new NEO was...