ESA will host the International Academy of Astronautic's 4th Planetary Defence Conference (PDC 2015), entitled ‘Assessing Impact Risk & Managing Response', at the Agency's ESRIN establishment, near...

If an asteroid were spotted headed towards Earth, what could humanity do about it? ESA's latest mission is part of a larger international effort to find out. This month marked the start of...

The recent claim that asteroid 2014 UR116 may be threatening the Earth shows how difficult it is to convey the right message about the NEO hazard. The no-news spread after statements from the...

The Large Binocular Telescope (LBT), of which the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF) is a main partner, has successfully observed asteroid 2014 KC46 in one of the faintest...

In the evening of 07 September 2014, the newly discovered asteroid 2014 RC will have a very close fly-by of just above 30000 km to our planet. The object is estimated to be between 10 and 30 m in...

Today the NEO Coordination Centre (NEOCC) celebrates its first year of activities. On 22 May 2013 the Centre was formally inaugurated at ESRIN by Thomas Reiter, ESA Director of Human Spaceflight...

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...

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...

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...

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...

The orbital path of 2011 AG5 has been carefully analyzed in the past year, due to its 1-in-550 probability to pass, during the moderately close approach to the Earth that will take place in early...

In the last SSA-NEO observing run on Tenerife, we have imaged an object on the NEO Confirmation Page called SW40nU (now called comet C/2012 T5), discovered by the Spacewatch survey. It turned out...

Placeholder article about most recent CAFS.

The ESA SSA-NEO Coordination Centre has released the December newsletter.

'Oumuamua, an object from another star system that made a brief appearance in our skies turns out to be a tiny interstellar comet. Read more: https://www.esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science

ABC ABC

Close Approach Fact Sheet for asteroid (52768) 1998 OR2

The ESA SSA-NEO Coordination Centre has released the July newsletter.

Restricted Information

Access to, and use of, this ESA website constitutes acceptance of the following general terms and conditions. It is also required that you are aware and agree to the following privacy policy.

Last update: 2020-12-04 10:00 UTC On this page, the NEOCC provides problems (we call them 'riddles') related to the observation of NEOs, their dynamics and their characterisation. In irregular...

It is possible to visualise the orbits of all asteroids in our database by entering their name, provisional designation or catalogue number. The position along the orbit is computed at regular time...

Asteroid and Comet Trajectory Propagator (NEOPROP) In 2012, Astos Solutions developed for ESA a new orbital propagator algorithm in order to assess the potential risk of impact of an NEO. The...

The first part of the Discovery Statistics page

It is widely acknowledged that NEO science is intriguing and often goes against common sense. A clear understanding of the meaning and importance of any text concerning near-Earth objects, their...

The word NEO stands for near-Earth object, indicating a small body of the Solar System which can come into the Earth’s neighbourhood. A broad classification of NEOs distinguishes NECs (near-Earth...

Even if an asteroid misses the Earth, it can come back and hit our planet in a subsequent "return". Whether this happens or not, depends on whether the object passes through well-defined regions in...

The first NEA, (433) Eros, was discovered by Gustav Witt from the Urania Sternwarte Berlin and independently by Auguste Charlois from the Observatoire de Nice, on 13 August 1898. The discovery...

SSA is the acronym of ESA's "Space Situational Awareness" programme, which was the precursor to the current Space Safety Programme. SSA ran between 2009 and 2019. More info at:...

The Torino scale is a function of the impact energy and probability of the event, with no reference to the time of impact. In the Palermo scale, the risk posed by a possible impactor is compared to...

S2P is the acronym for ESA's "Space Safety Programme”. Its aim is "the protection of our planet, humanity and assets in space and on Earth from dangers originating in space". More info at:...

PDO is the acronym of ESA’s Planetary Defence Office within its Space Safety programme (S2P). The goals of the Office are to: 1) be aware of the current and future position of near-Earth objects...

The possibility of browsing through the largest possible set of astronomical images and download them for inspection is extremely useful in order to find possible unidentified detections of NEOs or...

In the last observing slot at ESA's 1-m telescope on Tenerife, the previously 'lost' object 2009 XZ1 has been recovered. E. Schwab (Germany) has planned and analyzed the observations. The Minor...

A revision of the Apophis impact hazard assessment

Possible extension for the Hayabusa2 mission

The closest non-impacting asteroid

The full orbit determination and impact monitoring computations being performed at our premises

The fly-by of 2020 QG asteroid