Sentry (astronomy)

Sentry ( sentinel in English) is an automated system of forecast of collisions of the Astéroïde S with the Ground which calculates the Orbite S of the asteroids géocroiseurs and catalogs the foreseeable possible impacts over the 100 next years. When a potential impact is detected, it is analyzed and the result immediately is published, associated with a level of risk based on the scale of Turin, on Internet site Sentry of NASA.

These results must however be relativized bus of the asteroids appear on this list as soon as their orbit approaches that of the ground, even if their trajectory is not yet entirely defined because of an insufficient number of observations. Most of the time, when a new asteroid is catalogued, it is withdrawn from the list a few days afterwards, not because calculations are erroneous, but because later observations cancelled the risk identified by Sentry.

Sentry is complementary to the system NEODyS based with Pisa in Italy. The teams in load of the two systems are in constant communication between them to check their results reciprocally and to improve the effectiveness and the reliability of the respective systems.

Sentry was created by NASA mainly by Dr. Steve Chesley and Alan Chamberlin with the technical assistance of Dr. Paul Chodas. It was set up in March 2002 after two years of development. It is based with Pasadena in California.

Discovered

The December 26th 2004, Sentry allotted a risk of level 4 of impact on the scale of Turin to the asteroid {{PM2|2004 MN|4}}; since, following new observations, this risk was definitively isolated.

See too

External bond

Sentry Analyzes of NASA

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