Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) was a program run by

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

and the

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

, surveying the sky for

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). ...

s. NEAT was conducted from December 1995 until April 2007, at

GEODSS The United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) detects, tracks, catalogs and identifies artificial objects orbiting Earth, e.g. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris. The system is the responsibility of Uni ...

on Hawaii (Haleakala-NEAT;

566 566 ( DLXVI) was a common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 566 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the preva ...

), as well as at

Palomar Observatory Palomar Observatory is an astronomical research observatory in San Diego County, California, United States, in the Palomar Mountain Range. It is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Research time at the observat ...

in California (Palomar-NEAT;

644 __NOTOC__ Year 644 ( DCXLIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. The denomination 644 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar er ...

). With the

discovery Discovery may refer to: * Discovery (observation), observing or finding something unknown * Discovery (fiction), a character's learning something unknown * Discovery (law), a process in courts of law relating to evidence Discovery, The Discovery ...

of more than 40 thousand

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

s, NEAT has been one of the most successful programs in this field, comparable to the Catalina Sky Survey, LONEOS and Mount Lemmon Survey. NEAT was the successor to the Palomar Planet-Crossing Asteroid Survey (PCAS).

History

The original principal investigator was

Eleanor F. Helin Eleanor Francis "Glo" Helin (née Francis, 19 November 1932 – 25 January 2009) was an American astronomer. She was principal investigator of the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking (NEAT) program of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. (Some sources gi ...

, with co-investigators Steven H. Pravdo and David L. Rabinowitz. NEAT has a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Air Force to use a

telescope located on Haleakala,

Maui The island of Maui (; Hawaiian: ) is the second-largest of the islands of the state of Hawaii at 727.2 square miles (1,883 km2) and is the 17th largest island in the United States. Maui is the largest of Maui County's four islands, which ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

. GEODSS stands for

Ground-based Electro-Optical Deep Space Surveillance The United States Space Surveillance Network (SSN) detects, tracks, catalogs and identifies artificial objects orbiting Earth, e.g. active/inactive satellites, spent rocket bodies, or fragmentation debris. The system is the responsibility of Uni ...

and these wide field Air Force telescopes were designed to optically observe Earth orbital spacecraft. The NEAT team designed a CCD camera and computer system for the GEODSS telescope. The CCD camera format is 4096 × 4096

pixel In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a raster image, or the smallest point in an all points addressable display device. In most digital display devices, pixels are the smal ...

s and the field of view is 1.2° × 1.6°. Beginning in April 2001, the Samuel Oschin telescope ( aperture Schmidt telescope at

) was also put into service to discover and track near-Earth objects. This telescope is equipped with a camera containing 112 CCDs each 2400 × 600. This is the telescope that produced the images leading to the discovery of

50000 Quaoar Quaoar (50000 Quaoar), provisional designation , is a dwarf planet in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. A non-resonant object (cubewano), it measures approximately in diameter, about half the diameter of Pluto. The ...

in 2002, and

90377 Sedna Sedna (minor-planet designation 90377 Sedna) is a dwarf planet in the outer reaches of the Solar System that is in the innermost part of its orbit; it is 84 astronomical units (AU), or 1.26×1010 km, from the Sun, almost three times farther ...

in 2003 (published 2004) and the dwarf planet Eris. In addition to discovering thousands of

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

s, NEAT is also credited with the co-discovery (recovery) of periodic

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

54P/de Vico-Swift-NEAT and of the high proper motion Teegarden's star. The C/2001 Q4 (NEAT) comet was discovered on August 24, 2001 by NEAT. An asteroid was named in its honour,

64070 NEAT 64 or sixty-four or ''variation'', may refer to: * 64 (number) Dates * one of the years 64 BC, AD 64, 1864, 1964, 2064, etc. * June 4th (6/4) ** the date of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre * April 6th (6/4) * April 6 AD (6/4) * ...

, in early 2005.

Discoveries

1996 PW is an exceptionally eccentric trans-Neptunian object and damocloid on an orbit typical of long-period comets but one that showed no sign of cometary activity around the time it was discovered. The Unusual minor planet, unusual object measures app ...

was discovered on 1996 August 9 by a NEAT automated search camera on Haleakalā,

. It was the first object that was not an active comet discovered on an orbit typical of a long-period comets.Weissman, P. R. & Levison, H. F. (1997)
Origin and evolution of the unusual object 1996 PW: Asteroids from the Oort cloud?
''The Astrophysical Journal'', 488, L133–L136 This raised the possibility it was an extinct comet or an unusual asteroid.

References

External links

Near Earth Asteroid Tracking
{{Authority control Astronomical surveys Asteroid surveys Astronomical discoveries by institution * Jet Propulsion Laboratory Near-Earth object tracking Palomar Observatory

History

Discoveries

See also

References

External links