NEO+Project



About NE0:

The main purpose of the Near-Earth Object Program is to coordinate NASA-sponsored efforts to detect, track and characterize potentially hazardous asteroids and comets that could approach the Earth
 * N**ear-**E**arth **O**bjects (NEOs) are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth's neighborhood. Composed mostly of water ice with embedded dust particles, comets originally formed in the cold outer planetary system while most of the rocky asteroids formed in the warmer inner solar system between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

How can Near earth project provide information about earth's past?

Near earth object can help provide information about earth past because.Asteroids and comets are believed to be ancient remnants of the earliest years of the formation of our solar system more than four billion years ago. From the beginning of life on Earth to the recent spectacular impact of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 with Jupiter, these so-called "small bodies" play a key role in many of the fundamental processes that have shaped the planetary neighborhood in which we live.

How So NEO'S create a possible risk to earth?
A relatively small number of near-Earth objects pass close enough to Earth and are large enough in size to warrant close observation. Thats because the gravitational tug of the planets could, over time, cause an objects orbital path to evolve into an Earth-crossing orbit. This allows for the possibility of a future collision.

Current successful missions of NEO'S Study.

October 31, 2011 8407 near earth objects have been discovered, some 830 of these NEO'S are asteroids with a diameter of approximately i kilometer larger. Also 1260 of these NEO's have been classified as potentially hazardous asteroids.