The UK Near Earth Object Information Centre (NEOIC)

The UK Technical Information Centre

The UK Technical Information Centre (TIC, URL-3 1999) is one of a set of Internet-based services developed in the EC funded project CONNET (URL-1 1999). The TIC aims to provide a single source of information on any purchasable publication of relevance to the built environment in the UK. Over 220 publishers have been identified and it is estimated that information on about 50,000 publications wi...

Identifying near Earth Object Families

The study of asteroid families has provided tremendous insight into the forces that sculpted the main belt and continue to drive the collisional and dynamical evolution of asteroids. The identification of asteroid families within the NEO population could provide a similar boon to studies of their formation and interiors. In this study we examine the purported identification of NEO families by D...

Adventures in near-Earth object exploration.

Asteroids, because of the hazard they pose to Earth, are compelling targets for robotic and human space exploration. Yet because of their exotic low-gravity environment, simply landing on an asteroid appears to be much more challenging than we had appreciated 5 or 10 years ago. Thanks to a bold new mission from Japan that has made the first asteroid sample return attempt, this goal is now withi...

CubeSail for Near Earth Object Observation

Microsatellites known as “CubeSats” have recently been developed to enable comparatively inexpensive and timely access to space for small payloads. As a new standard for small satellites, the CubeSat has shown great promise for space applications such as earth observation, planetary science and space physics mission. In this paper a “CubeSail” mission – a CubeSat deployed with a solar sail –for...

Understanding the Near-Earth Object Population: the 2004 Perspective