October 2020 Newsletter

The first edition of the Planetary Defense Conference (PDC) managed by the International Academy of Astronautics happened exactly 10 years ago,in the week of 27-30 April 2009 (before the IAA became involved, there were two other PDCs, both in the USA). The conference was held in Granada, Spain, and was the first of a biennial IAA series that is continuing this month, with the 6th conference being held in College Park, USA.

September 2022 Newsletter

The month of December this year marks the fifth anniversary of the launch of ESA’s Gaia spacecraft. The mission, now operating continuously near the Earth-Sun L2 Lagrangian point, has already revolutionized many fields of astronomy, thanks to the broad and exquisite quality of the data it is producing.

January 2021 Newsletter

This year on 8 February marks the 50th anniversary of the fall of the Allende meteorite, the largest carbonaceous chondrite ever found. The atmospheric entry and impact happened at night local time, and were therefore well observed over the entire Northern Mexico. About 2 tonnes of fragments were later collected on ground in a strewn field of about 50 km size.

February 2020 Newsletter

September 2015 Newsletter

May 2023 Newsletter

The number of known near-Earth asteroids has just surpassed the threshold of 15000. That is a 50% increase with respect to 2013, when the 10000th object was found, highlighting the ever increasing success of ground-based NEO detection surveys.

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