{"id":15383,"date":"2025-06-26T04:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-26T04:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/15383\/"},"modified":"2025-06-26T04:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-26T04:44:09","slug":"nasa-planetary-defense-ignores-rubin-observatorys-asteroid-hunting-abilities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/15383\/","title":{"rendered":"NASA Planetary Defense Ignores Rubin Observatory’s Asteroid Hunting Abilities"},"content":{"rendered":"

Space & Planetary Science<\/a><\/p>\n

\"NASA<\/p>\n

\n OIG Report: NASA\u2019s Planetary Defense Strategy <\/p>\n

Keith\u2019s note:<\/strong> NASA has a Planetary Defense Program<\/strong><\/a>. They want to find asteroids that might pose a risk before they pose a threat. The other day the Vera Rubin Observatory released imagery of a variety of objects including 2,104 previously unknown asteroids discovered in just a few hours<\/strong><\/a> by this new instrument. NASA has ignored the Rubin observatory\u2019s debut altogether while the rest of the world stopped to pay attention. This new NASA OIG report NASA\u2019s Implementation and Management of Its Planetary Defense Strategy<\/strong><\/a> mentions Rubin as an option but does not ding the Planetary Defense Program for ignoring Rubin. Why is that? More below.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The NASA OIG report says \u201cNASA leads the nation\u2019s planetary defense efforts to address the potential hazards of asteroids and comets impacting Earth. While the Agency has made significant progress in its planetary defense mission, multiple challenges hinder its ability to fully execute its planetary defense strategic goals. Further, actions are needed to address the role of ground-based assets in the future as new observatories with more advanced capabilities come online\u201d.<\/p>\n

They go on to say \u201cWe also found that actions are needed to address the role of ground-based assets in the future of planetary defense. NASA leverages several ground-based observatories, including the Deep Space Network, and the Agency is approaching an era of advanced NEO surveys as new observatory assets come online. While the current network of older groundbased observatories can still play an important role, we spoke with officials from two observatories who noted multiple deferred maintenance issues impacted NEO detection and follow-up capabilities. For example, one observatory has two old cameras that need to be replaced to be more effective. More effective planning is required to ensure these assets are integrated into the work that will be performed by two upcoming observatories\u2014NEO Surveyor and the Vera C. Rubin Observatory<\/strong>. These new observatories are expected to find and track significantly more NEOs than current capabilities, which will likely mean a substantial increase in necessary follow-up observations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Part of the whole planetary defense thing is identifying hazardous asteroids before they can pose a threat to Earth. That means telescopes \u2013 in space and on Earth. I checked through this report and no mention is made of the Vera Rubin Observatory. Its capabilities were well known before it became operational. In an era of \u201call of government efforts\u201d. NASA has still made no mention of the Vera Rubin Observatory despite world wide coverage.Its not a NASA observatory. Vera Rubin Observatory is a NSF facility \u2013 not a NASA facility. Apparently that is why.<\/p>\n

Given this prodigious asteroid finding capability you\u2019d think at least NASA Planetary Defense folks would be aware of this demonstrated capability by Vera Rubin Observatory. I checked the website<\/strong><\/a>. No mention of Vera Rubin Observatory. The only thing I could find was after a search with the NASA.gov search engine: \u201cNASA\u2019s Next-Generation Asteroid Impact Monitoring System Goes Online<\/a><\/strong>\u201d from 2021.<\/p>\n

Why can\u2019t NSF and NASA work together and cross pollinate their planetary defense and astronomy capabilities better than they have?<\/p>\n

\"\"\/<\/p>\n

NASA Watch founder, Explorers Club Fellow, ex-NASA, Away Teams, Journalist, Space & Astrobiology, Lapsed climber.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Space & Planetary Science OIG Report: NASA\u2019s Planetary Defense Strategy Keith\u2019s note: NASA has a Planetary Defense Program.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":15384,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[9603,15476,15477,159,783,67,132,68,15478],"class_list":{"0":"post-15383","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-asteroids","9":"tag-nasa-oig","10":"tag-planetary-defense","11":"tag-science","12":"tag-space","13":"tag-united-states","14":"tag-unitedstates","15":"tag-us","16":"tag-vera-rubin-observatory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114747845532583900","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15383","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15383"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15383\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15384"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15383"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15383"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15383"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}