From: mark <whitroth at 5-cent.us>
Subject: [WSFA] NASA's Scout and Sentry: intruder alert, intruder alert...
To: WSFA Official List <wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com>,
 WSFA members <WSFAlist at keithlynch.net>, bsfsgeneral <bsfsgeneral at bsfs.org>,
 "gt-pfrc at ml.gt.org" <gt-pfrc at ml.gt.org>
Date: Mon, 31 Oct 2016 20:06:24 -0400
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

Excerpt:
A large space rock came fairly close to Earth on Sunday night. Astronomers
knew it wasn't going to hit Earth, thanks in part to a new tool NASA is
developing for detecting potentially dangerous asteroids.

The tool is a computer program called Scout, and it's being tested at NASA
Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. Think of Scout as a
celestial intruder alert system. It's constantly scanning data from
telescopes to see if there are any reports of so-called Near Earth
Objects. If it finds one, it makes a quick calculation of whether Earth is
at risk, and instructs other telescopes to make follow-up observations to
see if any risk is real.
<...>
Scout is still in the testing phase. It should become fully operational
later this year.

Now Scout is mainly dealing with smallish, very nearby objects.
Complementing Scout is another system that is already operational called
Sentry.

Sentry's job is to identify objects large enough to wipe out a major city
that might hit Earth in the next hundred years. "Our goal right now is to
find 90 percent of the 140-meter asteroids and larger," says Chodas, but
right now he estimates they're able to find only 25 to 30 percent of the
estimated population of objects that size.
--- end excerpt ---

<http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/10/30/499751470/nasas-new-intruder-alert-system-spots-an-incoming-asteroid>

        mark