Keep Track of NEOs with New "Asteroid Watch" Website

By Nancy Atkinson - July 29, 2009 09:04 PM UTC | Planetary Science

With the recent impact on Jupiter, a lot of people out there have asteroids on their mind and wonder if one could possibly hit Earth. Now, NASA and JPL have a new website called "

Asteroid Watch

" which will keep everyone updated if any object approaches Earth. They've also created an

Asteroid Watch Twitter account

that Tweet updates on NEOs, plus there's a

downloadable widget

as well.

"The goal of our Web site is to provide the public with the most up-to-date and accurate information on these intriguing objects," said Don Yeomans, manager of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at JPL.

"This innovative new Web application gives the public an unprecedented look at what's going on in near-Earth space," said Lindley Johnson, program executive for the Near-Earth Objects Observation program at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

Information is garnered from surveys and missions that detect and track asteroids and comets passing close to Earth. The Near-Earth Object Observation Program, commonly called "Spaceguard," also plots the orbits of these objects to determine if any could be potentially hazardous to our planet.

There's also another non-NASA Twitter feed called

lowflyingrocks

that lets you know about every Near Earth Object that passes within 0.2AU of Earth.

Source:

JPL

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson

Nancy Atkinson is a space journalist and author with a passion for telling the stories of people involved in space exploration and astronomy. She is currently retired from daily writing, but worked at Universe Today for 20 years as a writer and editor. She also contributed articles to The Planetary Society, Ad Astra (National Space Society), New Scientist and many other online outlets.

Her 2019 book, "Eight Years to the Moon: The History of the Apollo Missions,” shares the untold stories of engineers and scientists who worked behind the scenes to make the Apollo program so successful, despite the daunting odds against it. Her first book “Incredible Stories From Space: A Behind-the-Scenes Look at the Missions Changing Our View of the Cosmos” (2016) tells the stories of 37 scientists and engineers that work on several current NASA robotic missions to explore the solar system and beyond.

Nancy is also a NASA/JPL Solar System Ambassador, and through this program, she has the opportunity to share her passion of space and astronomy with children and adults through presentations and programs. Nancy's personal website is nancyatkinson.com