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Small Planetary Bodies
Studies involving small planetary bodies and near earth objects involve astronomy, and geology, modeling activities. Researchers in the field conduct those activities to learn about how planets form and also to identify objects in close proximity to earth. JPL has sponsored many programs to identify small planetary bodies and to support NASA missions.
The Rosetta target comet 67P/Churyumov- Gerasimenko, observed with the FORS2 instrument at the 8.2m Antu telescope of the Very Large Telescope Observatory VLT of the European Southern Observatory ESO at Cerro Paranal in Chile.
Researchers in the small bodies area study observational planetary astronomy, planetary geology, data analysis and interpretation, theoretical modeling, and mission leadership and support. In addition, small planetary bodies research involves maintaining and exporting the past, current and future positions for each of the 8 planets in the Solar System, 164 natural satellites and hundreds of thousands of comets and asteroids, through the Solar System Dynamics Group.
In addition, the Horizons Ephemeris Export System has provided more than 10 million predictions for solar system object positions to an international community of scientists.
Over the past decade the research areas led by the group include modeling the morphology of cometary jets; detection of volatile transport on Triton; physical characterization of asteroids and cometary nuclei; detection and modeling of hot spots on Io; physical characterization of extinct comets, asteroids, Kuiper Belt Objects, and Centaurs; formation and composition of the low-albedo side of Iapetus; the dynamics and physical properties of planetary rings; and the nature of Martian surface material. One of the world's leading planetary radar science teams is contained in the group.
Selected Mission Projects and Research Efforts
Typical missions to asteroids and comets include the following types of instruments:
Imager
IR Spectrometer and UV Spectrometer
Lidar
X-Ray Spectrometer, Gamma Ray Spectrometer, Alpha/X-ray Spectrometer
Impact dust mass spectrometer
Magnetometer
Plasma Package
The members of the group have played key leadership roles for many missions, including Voyager, Cassini-Huygens, Deep Space 1, Stardust, and the Mars Exploration Rover, and many of its observers have obtained ground-based measurements in support of these and other NASA missions.
Near Earth Object Program
JPL’s Near Earth Object Program is responsible for tracking the motions of comets and asteroids that can closely approach the Earth. In 2008 alone, NASA-supported near-Earth object telescopic observers have discovered more than 400 of these objects and the Program Office continuously monitors their motions by improving their orbits, identifying future Earth close approaches and, for those objects of particular interest, computing Earth impact probabilities.
Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood. Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The scientific interest in comets and asteroids is due largely to their status as the relatively unchanged remnant debris from the solar system formation process some 4.6 billion years ago.
Near earth asteroid discoveries by the NEO program at JPL since 1995.
Deep Impact
Composite image of Comet Tempel 1, with data from Deep Impact's three cameras. Arrows a and b point to large, smooth regions. The impact site is indicated by the third large arrow. The scale bar is 1 km and the two arrows above the nucleus point to the sun and the rotational axis of the nucleus.
The Deep Impact mission, which launched in January, 2005 and encountered Comet Tempel 1 in July, 2005, focused on seven questions. (1) What are some basic properties of the nucleus, for example: what does it's landscape look like, how dense is it, how strongly is it held together and how massive is it? (2) How has the comet changed during its lifetime? (3) What kinds of ice remain unchanged from the comet's early days? (4) Can the heat of the sun finally drive all the ice out of a comet so that it becomes extinct or will it only go to sleep perhaps to wake again? (5) Do smaller comets collide and form larger comets? (6) Are there impact craters on comets like there are on moons and asteroids? (7) Can the course of a comet be altered to reduce the effect of, or avoid, a collision with Earth? Deep Impact's primary scientific theme was to understand the differences between the interior of a cometary nucleus and its surface. Cometary scientists are convinced, albeit on the basis of little or no observational data, that the surface layers of the nuclei are highly evolved. Numerous perihelion passages can lead to significant loss of ice from the outer-most layers; if comets are as porous as they are generally presumed to be, then this can lead to significant changes in the ice. Calculations by Prialnik and Mekler (1991), by Benkhoff and Huebner (1995), and by Klinger (1996), for example, all indicate that evolutionary effects are important at depths below one meter.
Hayabusa
The Japanese Hayabusa spacecraft, launched in 2005, was intended to encounter the near Earth asteroid Itokawa and collect samples by firing pellets into the surface of the 535-meter-long rock and scooping up the resulting debris. Science teams hope to bring the spacecraft back to Earth in case some asteroid dust had slipped into its collection chamber by chance. If it completes the trip, it is expected to drop a capsule in the Australian outback in June 2010.
Researchers at JPL are active members of the Hayabusa Science Team. Science objectives of Haybusa include, but are not limited to:
Map surface morphology including surface features to one 1-m resolution
Determine spin state, colors, size, shape, volume, and rotation characteristics
Search for possible asteroid satellites and dust rings
Establish a global map of surface features and colors
Determine the major elemental composition at localized areas during asteroid approach phases
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