Anuncio

Colaboración ESA/ESO localiza exitosamente su primer objeto cercano a la Tierra potencialmente peligroso

21 de Enero de 2014

La primera campaña de localización de Objetos Cercanos a la Tierra (NEOs) se ha llevado a cabo exitosamente, mediante una nueva colaboración entre la Agencia Espacial Europea (ESA en sus siglas en inglés) y el Observatorio Europeo Austral (ESO).  Hasta la fecha, el asteroide 2009 FD se encontraba entre los cinco principales objetos más peligrosos. Sin embargo, nuevas observaciones realizadas con el Very Large Telescope (VLT) han demostrado que el riesgo de que impacte la Tierra es menor a lo que se temía[1].

Los Objetos Cercanos a la Tierra, o NEOs, son asteroides o cometas que orbitan nuestro Sol y se acercan mucho a la órbita terrestre. Se han detectado más de 600.000 asteroides en el Sistema Solar, de los cuales alrededor de 10.000 han sido clasificados como NEOs.  Sus tamaños oscilan desde algunos metros hasta decenas de kilómetros.  Existe el peligro de que algún Objeto Cercano a la Tierra impacte nuestro planeta lo cual, dependiendo de su tamaño,  produciría daños considerables.  A pesar de que es muy poco probable que un objeto de gran tamaño impacte la Tierra, produciría gran destrucción y pérdida de vidas.

La nueva colaboración entre ESA y ESO se lleva a cabo en el marco de un esfuerzo global iniciado por las Naciones Unidas y su Comisión para el Uso Pacífico del Espacio Ultraterrestre (COPUOS). A raíz del evento Chelyabinsk, sobre Rusia en febrero del año pasado, ha surgido un renovado interés por  tomar acciones respecto a la amenaza que plantean los Objetos Cercanos a la Tierra. Un equipo de acción de ONU COPUOS, que incluyó a ESO, hizo recomendaciones para dar una respuesta internacional a la amenaza de los impactos por NEOs, a través del establecimiento de una Red Internacional de Alerta de Asteroides,  que fue aprobada por la Asamblea General de las Naciones Unidas, en octubre del 2013.

Las capacidades únicas de ESO para observar NEOs muy tenues (pero igualmente amenazantes), se complementa con los esfuerzos realizados por ESA para descubrir y localizar estos objetos. Nuevas observaciones del asteroide 2009 FD llevadas a cabo con el telescopio ESO de 8,2 metros, el Very Large Telescope en Cerro Paranal, Chile, arrojaron mediciones de posición de muy buena calidad.  Estos datos han sido aceptados recientemente por el IAU Minor Planet Center (Centro de Planetas Menores, IAU), el organismo oficial a cargo de recopilar datos observacionales de planetas menores. Tanto el sistema Europeo NEODyS como el sistema centinela JPL-based Sentry realizaron cálculos de órbita y monitoreo de impacto, haciendo uso de las nuevas observaciones realizadas con el VLT.

La Sección de ESA dedicada a los NEOs, denominada SSA o Space Situational Awareness (Informe de Situación Espacial), tiene como objetivo coordinar y combinar datos de diversas fuentes, analizandolo con el fin de predecir cualquier posible impacto con la Tierra, como también evaluar cualquier peligro y sus posibles mitigaciones, incluyendo la desviación de un asteroide que presente una amenaza.

Las observaciones exitosas del 2009 FD demuestran que el acceso a un telescopio de gran tamaño, como el VLT presenta una gran ventaja para el NEO Coordination Centre (Centro de Coordinación para Objetos Cercanos a la Tierra), ya que permite obtener observaciones posicionales de gran precisión de objetos muy tenues[2], lo cual es factible solamente con los telescopios de mayor tamaño.

Notas

[1] El valor asociado en la Escala de Palermo se ha reducido en casi un factor de diez a un valor de -2,6 (desde -1.8 en la escala logarítmica). Los cálculos indican que aún existe una pequeña posibilidad de que se produzca un impacto entre los años 2185 y 2198.   [2] Tan fino como una magnitud visual 26.5.

Información adicional

Las observaciones fueron realizadas por personal científico de Paranal, a requerimiento de un equipo que incluye a Olivier Hainaut (ESO), Detlef Koschny (ESA) y Marco Micheli (equipo NEOCC, ESA/Serco). 

Enlaces

Contactos

Olivier R. Hainaut
ESO Astronomer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6752
Cell: +49 151 2262 0554
Email: ohainaut@eso.org 

Richard Hook
ESO, Public Information Officer
Garching bei München, Germany
Tel: +49 89 3200 6655
Cell: +49 151 1537 3591
Email: rhook@eso.org

Sobre el anuncio

Identificador:ann14004

Imágenes

The VLT images the very faint near-Earth object 2009 FD
The VLT images the very faint near-Earth object 2009 FD
solo en inglés

Envíenos sus comentarios
Suscríbete para recibir noticias de ESO en tu idioma
Acelerado por CDN77
Términos y Condiciones
Cookie Settings and Policy

Our use of Cookies

We use cookies that are essential for accessing our websites and using our services. We also use cookies to analyse, measure and improve our websites’ performance, to enable content sharing via social media and to display media content hosted on third-party platforms.

You can manage your cookie preferences and find out more by visiting 'Cookie Settings and Policy'.

ESO Cookies Policy


The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO) is the pre-eminent intergovernmental science and technology organisation in astronomy. It carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities for astronomy.

This Cookies Policy is intended to provide clarity by outlining the cookies used on the ESO public websites, their functions, the options you have for controlling them, and the ways you can contact us for additional details.

What are cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data stored on your device by websites you visit. They serve various purposes, such as remembering login credentials and preferences and enhance your browsing experience.

Categories of cookies we use

Essential cookies (always active): These cookies are strictly necessary for the proper functioning of our website. Without these cookies, the website cannot operate correctly, and certain services, such as logging in or accessing secure areas, may not be available; because they are essential for the website’s operation, they cannot be disabled.

Cookie ID/Name
Description/Purpose
Provider (1st party or 3rd party)
Browser session cookie or Stored cookie?
Duration
csrftoken
XSRF protection token. We use this cookie to protect against cross-site request forgery attacks.
1st party
Stored
1 year
user_privacy
Your privacy choices. We use this cookie to save your privacy preferences.
1st party
Stored
6 months
_grecaptcha
We use reCAPTCHA to protect our forms against spam and abuse. reCAPTCHA sets a necessary cookie when executed for the purpose of providing its risk analysis. We use www.recaptcha.net instead of www.google.com in order to avoid unnecessary cookies from Google.
3rd party
Stored
6 months

Functional Cookies: These cookies enhance your browsing experience by enabling additional features and personalization, such as remembering your preferences and settings. While not strictly necessary for the website to function, they improve usability and convenience; these cookies are only placed if you provide your consent.

Cookie ID/Name
Description/Purpose
Provider (1st party or 3rd party)
Browser session cookie or Stored cookie?
Duration
Settings
preferred_language
Language settings. We use this cookie to remember your preferred language settings.
1st party
Stored
1 year
ON | OFF
sessionid
ESO Shop. We use this cookie to store your session information on the ESO Shop. This is just an identifier which is used on the server in order to allow you to purchase items in our shop.
1st party
Stored
2 weeks
ON | OFF

Analytics cookies: These cookies collect information about how visitors interact with our website, such as which pages are visited most often and how users navigate the site. This data helps us improve website performance, optimize content, and enhance the user experience; these cookies are only placed if you provide your consent. We use the following analytics cookies.

Matomo Cookies:

This website uses Matomo (formerly Piwik), an open source software which enables the statistical analysis of website visits. Matomo uses cookies (text files) which are saved on your computer and which allow us to analyze how you use our website. The website user information generated by the cookies will only be saved on the servers of our IT Department. We use this information to analyze www.eso.org visits and to prepare reports on website activities. These data will not be disclosed to third parties.

On behalf of ESO, Matomo will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage.

ON | OFF

Matomo cookies settings:

Cookie ID/Name
Description/Purpose
Provider (1st party or 3rd party)
Browser session cookie or Stored cookie?
Duration
Settings
_pk_id
Stores a unique visitor ID.
1st party
Stored
13 months
_pk_ses
Session cookie temporarily stores data for the visit.
1st party
Stored
30 minutes
_pk_ref
Stores attribution information (the referrer that brought the visitor to the website).
1st party
Stored
6 months
_pk_testcookie
Temporary cookie to check if a visitor’s browser supports cookies (set in Internet Explorer only).
1st party
Stored
Temporary cookie that expires almost immediately after being set.

Additional Third-party cookies on ESO websites: some of our pages display content from external providers, e.g. YouTube.

Such third-party services are outside of ESO control and may, at any time, change their terms of service, use of cookies, etc.

YouTube: Some videos on the ESO website are embedded from ESO’s official YouTube channel. We have enabled YouTube’s privacy-enhanced mode, meaning that no cookies are set unless the user actively clicks on the video to play it. Additionally, in this mode, YouTube does not store any personally identifiable cookie data for embedded video playbacks. For more details, please refer to YouTube’s embedding videos information page.

Cookies can also be classified based on the following elements.

Regarding the domain, there are:

As for their duration, cookies can be:

How to manage cookies

Cookie settings: You can modify your cookie choices for the ESO webpages at any time by clicking on the link Cookie settings at the bottom of any page.

In your browser: If you wish to delete cookies or instruct your browser to delete or block cookies by default, please visit the help pages of your browser:

Please be aware that if you delete or decline cookies, certain functionalities of our website may be not be available and your browsing experience may be affected.

You can set most browsers to prevent any cookies being placed on your device, but you may then have to manually adjust some preferences every time you visit a site/page. And some services and functionalities may not work properly at all (e.g. profile logging-in, shop check out).

Updates to the ESO Cookies Policy

The ESO Cookies Policy may be subject to future updates, which will be made available on this page.

Additional information

For any queries related to cookies, please contact: pdprATesoDOTorg.

As ESO public webpages are managed by our Department of Communication, your questions will be dealt with the support of the said Department.