ASTEROID INSTITUTE A PROGRAM OF B612
ANNUAL PROGRESS REPORT 2021
Cover: Moonrise, by Ed Lu from the ISS This page: Caribbean Reefs, by Ed Lu from the ISS
Launched in 2017, the Asteroid Institute is a program of B612 and is designed to be the international center of excellence for scientific collaboration on the discovery and deflection of asteroids as well as an incubator for new technologies. This report outlines progress on science and research within the Asteroid Institute and other public education programs at B612.
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT I am always struck by the profundity of Margaret Mead’s statement, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” In the last year, we have continued to make important progress to protect our home planet from asteroids, and we will continue to do so in the future. As B612 co-founder and my fellow Asteroid Day co-founder Rusty Schwieckart writes on page 18, our small but dedicated team of staff, volunteers, and supporters have made and will continue to make meaningful progress to advance the field of planetary defense. To that end, we are excited to report significant headway on our priority project, the Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) platform. We can now officially call ourselves “Asteroid Discoverers.” As we share in the report, our researchers have discovered new asteroids that were unnoticed in a previously examined astronomical dataset. We are making use of cloud-based computational capability far in excess of anything previously brought to bear on this important problem. This is all thanks to our donors and especially our partner Google. While this is exciting news, we know this is just the beginning of asteroid discoveries because we have only pushed a very small dataset through ADAM. You can read more about this in Joachim’s report on page 10. ADAM is being built by incredibly talented people and we were able to build that team with strong, determined leadership on our board. And so, it’s with deep appreciation and a bit of sadness to write that our Board Chair Dr. David Liddle has retired. David steered us through the launch of the Asteroid Institute, fundraising for our Fellow research program, and, most importantly, the work to launch ADAM. We will all deeply miss his kind spirit, strategic insight, and wonderful stories that contextualized our decisions and path forward. With David’s retirement, we are beyond excited to announce that Peter Schwartz, an internationally renowned futurist and business strategist who serves as the senior vice president for Global Government Relations and Strategic Planning at Salesforce, has been elected our new Board Chair. I had the pleasure of helping Peter co-found the Global Business Network and I currently serve alongside him on the Long Now Foundation board of directors. Long Now is dedicated to fostering long term thinking, which is certainly something we think about at B612. You can read more about David and Peter on page 17.
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LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
As lead founding partner of Asteroid Day, B612 is proud that it is now the United Nations’ sanctioned day of asteroid awareness and education. Asteroid Day was celebrated by hundreds of events around the world with asteroid experts, space-mission experts, students, astronomers, and astrophysicists. This year’s global theme was celebrating the 25th launch anniversary of the NEAR Shoemaker mission. The NEAR Shoemaker mission was the first spacecraft to orbit an asteroid and the first to land on one. You can read more about our teams’ Asteroid Day activities on page 20. Over the last eight years we have been privileged to have an active and wellrespected
group
of
advisors
to
our
programs. Recently we have lost several very special strategic advisors, including Julian
Nott,
founder
of
the
modern
ballooning movement; Alexander Singer,
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world: indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has. MARGARET MEAD, ANTHROPOLOGIST AND RECIPIENT OF THE PLANETARY CITIZEN OF THE YEAR AWARD
Emmy-winning director and producer; and Carolyn Shoemaker, astronomer, scientist, co-discoverer of comet Shoemaker–Levy 9. Carolyn worked directly in our field and was a special friend to us and our board of directors. You can read more about her on page 19. In any field of work it takes a team to create tools and to develop research and new programs. We have been blessed with a broad and deep network who share our belief that together we can protect humanity from inevitable future asteroid impacts. Our work is dependent upon the support and trust of our science and technology collaborators and donor community. Thank you for being part of our “small group of thoughtful, committed citizens” who make our work possible. Looking ahead,
Danica Remy President, B612 Foundation Co-Founder, Asteroid Day
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
5
ABOUT US B612 is dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid impacts through:
ASTEROID INSTITUTE
driving forward science and technologies needed to protect
ASTEROID
educating the public, the scientific community, and world
EDUCATION
the Earth from asteroid impacts through the Asteroid Institute;
governments about asteroids through programs such as Asteroid Day.
Since the organization’s inception in 2002, our work has been carried out largely through the support of private donors.
What started in 2002 as a visionary idea to develop the technology to deflect an asteroid has grown into a world-renowned organization and scientific institute with a key role in the emerging field of planetary defense. For years, B612, our partners, and a global community of dedicated scientists and researchers have advocated for increased asteroid detection, and many victories have resulted from those efforts. Asteroid detection is now debated seriously in scientific, governmental, and public conversations.
Krenitsyn volcano, Kuril Islands, Russia by Ed Lu from the ISS
IN THE LAST YEAR Asteroid Institute Discovers New Asteroids and Comets Using “Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery” (THOR), a new algorithm for linking observations of solar system objects across multiple datasets, we discovered previously unseen asteroids and comets. The algorithms and associated software have been published as open-source code for other researchers to use for their own discoveries as well as to independently validate ours.
Solar System Science Collaboration Sponsorship For the fourth consecutive year B612 sponsored the annual convening of the Solar System Science Collaboration (SSSC). This event brings SSSC and the planetary science community together for three days of planning and preparing for the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) data deluge. This year, the SSSC focused on the topic of observational follow-up in the LSST era. The Asteroid Institute team presented the Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) platform to the attendees and participated in software coding sprints.
I believe that people who take the long view are the ones who actually change the future. ESTHER DYSON, INVESTOR, AUTHOR, PHILANTHROPIST
Planetary Defense Conference Sponsorship and Paper B612 once again sponsored the biannual Planetary Defense conference, at which the Asteroid Institute team submitted and presented Characterizing the Population of Near-Earth-Asteroids to be Discovered in Year One of LSST Operations. This paper answers the question: “How many asteroids will the LSST find in its first two years of operation?” Turns out it’s a lot!
Asteroid Institute Senior Researcher Gets an Asteroid From the moment Asteroid Institute Senior Researcher Dr. Sarah Greenstreet learned that asteroids are often named in honor of accomplished astronomers, she dreamed of being one of them. This year her wish came true when it was announced in a bulletin from the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group on Small Bodies Nomenclature that asteroid (30535) 2001 OR5 had been named “Sarahgreenstreet.”
IN THE LAST YEAR
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ASTEROID INSTITUTE LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Thank you to all our donors, advisors, and supporters of the Asteroid Institute. We’ve made a lot of progress this year on mapping the solar system to enable planetary defense, scientific discovery, and development of space. Our core project, ADAM (Asteroid Discovery, Analysis and Mapping), is enabling researchers to not only carry out astrodynamics investigations at a scale not possible before but is also allowing for the discovery of new asteroids. ADAM is essentially an astrodynamics computational engine, with a backend system designed for ease of use and development. One of our principal goals for ADAM is to be ready to analyze and interpret the flood of new asteroid discoveries when the Vera Rubin Observatory commences operations in two years. We expect that the Vera Rubin Observatory will find several asteroids each week that have the potential to hit Earth in the coming decades. ADAM will provide an open and transparent means to analyze these asteroid threat cases, which will be critical to the political decision-making process. We are now using ADAM to computationally link together observations of the sky to discover asteroids that currently go unnoticed. Expect exciting news on this front in the coming months from our team. (Read the update on the THOR service on page 10.) As with all cloud-software projects, we must pay close attention to the back-end system that manages the thousands of computers that are temporarily assigned to solve the calculations at hand. For users and developers, it must be robust as well as easy to test and use. One of our software engineers, Kathleen Kiker, writes on page 13 about how our system architecture is designed to handle astrodynamics at scale. Finally, an exciting event next year will be the test of an actual deflection of a small asteroid. Launch of the NASA DART mission is scheduled for November 24, 2021, with the arrival and impact of the spacecraft on asteroid Dimorphos in October of 2022. Humanity is truly getting closer and closer to the goal of understanding how to protect Planet Earth from large asteroid impacts. To our future,
Dr. Ed Lu Executive Director, Asteroid Institute
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LETTER FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
ASTEROID DISCOVERY PROGRESS More than 99% of the asteroids large enough to destroy a city (like the Tunguska asteroid) remain untracked.
NEAR-EARTH ASTEROID SIZE RANGES
19–44 m
Over 1 km
140 m–1 km
44–140 m
Chelyabinsk, 2013 19 m (62 ft)
Tunguska, 1908 45 m (148 ft)
140 m (459 ft)
More than 30 A-bombs
More than 400 A-bombs
More than 7,000 A-bombs
CITY KILLER
NASA GOAL
More than 150,000 A-bombs CIVILIZATION ENDER
There are
There are
25,000
There are
There are
2.5 million
near-Earth asteroids in this size range.
near-Earth asteroids in this size range.
500,000
near-Earth asteroids in this size range.
1% tracked
1,000
near-Earth asteroids in this size range.
30% tracked
93% tracked
LSST & NEOSM 2008–2030 (EST. COMPLETION)
SPACEGUARD SURVEY 1998–2010 (COMPLETED)
0.1% tracked
NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS TRACKED As of October 1, 2021, the Minor Planet Center has 26,982 near-Earth asteroids in its database. This year, 2,152 new NEAs were discovered, largely by Pan-STARRS and Catalina Sky Surveys.
ASTEROID INSTITUTE MOVING TOWARDS ASTEROID DISCOVERY By Joachim Moeyens The Asteroid Institute, a program of B612, is enabling the discovery of asteroids and comets in the solar system through the development of the Asteroid Discovery, Analysis, and Mapping (ADAM) platform. The scalability of the ADAM platform provides a framework to unleash the newest generation of compute-heavy discovery algorithms on the enormous volume of datasets rich in undiscovered asteroids. Discovering asteroids is not an easy task. The sheer number of moving objects and the presence of false positive detections in astronomical images makes identifying and discovering asteroids an extremely computationally challenging problem. To make the problem more computationally tractable, the current state-of-the-art methods require that astronomical surveys observe the sky with a particular cadence. Observatories must observe the same area of the sky at least twice in one night and then at least twice again several nights later. Revisiting the same field within the same night allows moving asteroids to be relatively easily picked out as closely spaced points called tracklets. Requiring at least two visits to the same area of the sky in a single night has two immediate consequences. First, surveys with solar system discovery in mind must visit the same field multiple times in a night thereby limiting the amount of sky that the telescope could otherwise be observing. Second, and perhaps even more consequential, is that any dataset that was not constructed with a cadence that enables these nightly revisits is not a dataset suited for solar system discovery (i.e., the vast majority of astronomical datasets!). In light of these two considerations, researchers at the DiRAC Institute developed a new discovery algorithm named Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery (THOR). The algorithm is capable of discovering asteroids in datasets without tracklets but can instead discover objects in datasets that have an arbitrary cadence within a search window. Recently published in The Astronomical Journal as “THOR: An Algorithm for Cadence-independent Asteroid Discovery,” THOR was shown to be able to recover 1.5 to 2 times as many known objects as the current state-of-the-art methods given the same two weeks of observations from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF). Assuming perfectly functioning pipelines, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s Solar System Pipeline could at best have recovered 9,381 known objects, while ZTF’s own algorithm called
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MOVING TOWARDS ASTEROID DISCOVERY
ZMODE could at best have recovered 14,291 known objects. THOR recovered 20,940 known objects (just over 97% of all objects that appeared in the dataset five or more times). In a dataset from September 2018, we found that THOR identified 488 high-quality discovery candidates that could have been submitted to the Minor Planet Center (the global “clearinghouse” for asteroid discoveries). In the three years since the observations were made, 477 of those 488 discovery candidates were discovered by ZTF and other surveys. The observations and the on-sky motion of the remaining new 11 candidates are shown in the figure below and are in the process of being confirmed. Amongst these candidates we actually found observations of a parabolic comet C/2018 U1. The data from which this object was recovered using THOR date back to early September 2018. Had THOR been running as ZTF’s discovery algorithm, it would have allowed ZTF to claim the discovery of this fascinating object 6 weeks earlier than its current discovery date.
The on-sky motion and observations of the 10 discovery candidates and the “precovery” of comet C/2018 U1. The “wiggles” visible in some of the best-fit orbits are actually due to the motion of the observer, and this is one of the many reasons why discovering asteroids can be challenging.
MOVING TOWARDS ASTEROID DISCOVERY
11
Despite
THOR’s
exceptional
discovery
potential, the algorithm requires more
The white curves track the trajectories of the 10 discovery candidates starting from three years prior to their discovery up until the time at which they were observed in the ZTF dataset (the larger dots at the end of the trajectories occur at the time of the ZTF observations). The color trajectories are the planets during the same time frame, notably the Earth is shown in blue and Mars in red. C/2018 U1 is not plotted as it was recovered near z of 9 au, far out of the plane of the solar system.
computational power than the current discovery methods — computational power however that is readily met by scalable cloud-based platforms such as the Asteroid Discovery, Analysis, and Mapping (ADAM) platform. To enable solar system discovery, most astronomical surveys develop their own pipelines to address the specific needs and details of their respective telescopic and hardware systems, with the ultimate goal of producing catalogues of observations. These catalogues of observations are then processed in-house for potential discoveries. Currently, no publicly available service exists to enable discoveries from astronomical catalogues, and, certainly, no publicly available service exists to enable discoveries in datasets not typically suited for asteroid discovery. With the potential of THOR backed by the power of ADAM, we are now working to build a world-first discovery service where users or astronomical surveys can submit their catalogues of observations, have them processed by THOR, and have potential discoveries and known object recoveries returned — discovery as a service made possible by ADAM. By building the ADAM discovery service, the Asteroid Institute will provide the astronomical community with a well-tested and transparent tool to maximize the scientific output of already existing archival datasets. Future astronomical surveys may also be able to use the versatility of THOR to improve their own solar system throughput while having the flexibility of addressing a variety of other science goals that may require observing the sky in ways not traditionally suited for solar system discovery. The Asteroid Institute is building a tool that can tame the enormous volume of datasets now made suitable for asteroid discovery by THOR, all backed by the power of the aptly named Asteroid Discovery, Analysis, and Mapping (ADAM) platform.
About Joachim Joachim is an Asteroid Institute Researcher and graduate student in the Department of Astronomy at the University of Washington. For his doctoral thesis, Joachim is working on algorithms that discover minor planets in astronomical surveys — in particular, on Rubin Observatory’s Solar System Processing pipelines — and on a novel algorithm named Tracklet-less Heliocentric Orbit Recovery (THOR).
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MOVING TOWARDS ASTEROID DISCOVERY
INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A SOLAR SYSTEM MAP By Kathleen Kiker One of the Asteroid Institute’s driving goals is to make the interpretation of asteroid data open. In this last year, we made numerous improvements to our software infrastructure, culminating in the creation of a new service within ADAM for the discovery of asteroid candidates, using
the
Tracklet-less
Heliocentric
Orbit
Recovery
(THOR) algorithm. To improve usability and speed up development cycles, we plan to break the ADAM pipeline into smaller, stand-alone microservices that can be used or modified separately from one another. To test out this new infrastructure, we first tried it on a new utility for running THOR in the cloud. This service will make discovery of new asteroids as easy as a few lines of python code, or the click of a few buttons. When a user selects input data and launches a job, the ADAM backend takes care of the data upload and validation. The API then transfers the job to the task queue which can dynamically scale up or down based on the load. When the job is finished, the API will gather the results, do any post-processing, and put them in a storage bucket for the user to retrieve. Now instead of installing and running THOR on their own computers, researchers will be able to run it using the ADAM THOR API. By leveraging the power of the cloud, users process high volumes of data at a fraction of the cost of a large supercomputer. In the future, we plan to use a similar methodology to convert ADAM’s Monte Carlo, orbit propagation, and orbit discovery capabilities into their own stand-alone services, making working with asteroid data — for discoveries, for research, and for planetary defense — easier than ever before.
About Kathleen Kathleen is an ADAM software engineer. Her prior research focused on Black Hole formation using Cloudy simulation software. Previously at Lockheed Martin, she led the development for the latest releases of large-scale Fortran and C++ physicsmodelling code to run on high-performance computers (HPC).
INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A SOLAR SYSTEM MAP
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PROGRAM EVOLUTION 2002
2012–2013
2016
2017
B612 founded with goal to significantly alter the orbit of an asteroid in a controlled manner.
Open letter sent to NASA about deflection mission planning and discussions regarding potential impact of asteroid 2011 AG5.
Asteroid Day is recognized by the United Nations and holds 500 events worldwide.
Asteroid Institute builds team for ADAM to provide analytical tools for asteroid defense scenarios.
2004–2008 B612 leads the Apophis debate.
2005 B612 announces invention of gravity tractor in Nature.
2008–2009 B612 funds design study at JPL showing feasibility of the gravity tractor.
B612 announces the Sentinel Space Telescope project.
2014–2015 B612 releases asteroid impact video with data from the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.
B612 begins Asteroid Discovery Analysis and Mapping (ADAM) project. B612 endorses NEOCam and LSST for 100 m+ solution and stops fundraising for Sentinel project.
Asteroid Day moves to Luxembourg and streams a 24-hour global broadcast. B612 publishes call for shared solar system map in Financial Times. B612 Foundation celebrates 15th anniversary.
B612 is lead Founding Partner of Asteroid Day, a global asteroid-awareness campaign. B612’s “Sentinel to Find 500,000 Near-Earth Asteroids” published in IEEE Spectrum. Asteroid Day project holds 150 events worldwide.
2002
EBATE HIS D ACTOR APOP ITY TR GRAV
2014
SENTINEL
E COMMITTE ASE NEO
2005
2012–2013
Congress gives NASA goal of finding 90 percent of asteroids larger than 140 meters, called the George E. Brown, Jr. NearEarth Object Survey Act.
A 19 m meteor exploded over Chelyabinsk, Russia, injuring over 1,500 people and damaging thousands of buildings across six cities.
2006
2014–2015
United Nations ASE NEO Committee initiated.
UN Committee on Peaceful Uses of Outer Space and General Assembly pass resolution creating International Asteroid Warning Network. Construction for Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) begins.
2012
2010
2008
2006
2004
B612 funds Caltech research study to validate synthetic tracking feasibility.
NASA announces Planetary Defense Coordination Office. OSIRIS-REx mission to asteroid Bennu launches.
Asteroid Impact and Deflection Assessment (AIDA) almost funded by EU and USA. DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) is funded.
2018
2019
2020
2021
B612 launches Asteroid Institute program.
Asteroid Institute research on deflection impulses to move asteroids presented at Planetary Defense Conference.
Asteroid Institute paper “Required deflection impulses as a function of time before impact for Earth-impacting asteroids” published in Icarus.
ADAM team releases opensource code THOR and is published in the Astronomical Journal.
Asteroid Institute announces Google and AGI as ADAM technology partners. Asteroid Institute announces appointment of Senior Research Fellows. Asteroid Day holds 2,000+ events worldwide, streams a 48-hour global broadcast.
Asteroid Day celebrates 5th anniversary and streams 21day global broadcast. ADAM Engineer Funding campaign launched.
Asteroid Institute hosts ADAM hackathons (virtual in 2020).
B612 sponsors and presents at virtual Planetary Defense Conference.
Asteroid Day goes virtual and broadcasts 30 days of Asteroid Day TV.
B612 sponsors and presents LSST Solar System Science Collaboration Conference.
ADAM engineering team hired.
2018
2016
Asteroid Institute publishes synthetic tracking results as a NASA technical report.
SYNTHETIC TR ACKING
2020
ASTEROID DA Y
ASTEROID DISCOVER Y
Pew Research poll shows Americans believe asteroid monitoring should be national priority. United Nations OOSA publishes Planetary Defence Report.
ANALYS IS AND MAPP
ING (A DAM)
Hayabusa2 spacecraft surveyed asteroid Ryugu.
LSST changes its name to the Vera C. Rubin Observatory.
Associated Press research shows Americans believe asteroid monitoring should be a national priority.
COVID-19 quarantines the world, reminding us of the importance of taking the long view.
Hera mission funded.
Hayabusa2 collects asteroid Ryugu samples and heads back to Earth. OSIRIS-REx collects a sample of asteroid Bennu.
25th Anniversary of NEAR Shoemaker Mission. Hayabusa2 returns asteroid Ryugu sample to Earth. Osiris-REx heads back to Earth with asteroid Bennu sample.
ASTEROID INSTITUTE RESEARCHERS & COLLABORATORS* Samira Motiwala, ADAM Astrodynamicist MS, Stanford, Aerospace + Astronautics Engineering Samira is a Senior Flight Dynamics Engineer. Formerly, as trajectory lead for Planet, she successfully executed hundreds of on-orbit maneuvers across the fleet. She has a range of experiences that span astrodynamics, mission operations, trajectory design, maneuver planning, and software development.
Spencer Nelson, ADAM Data + Software Engineer BA, Northwestern, Physics + Astronomy Spencer is a software engineer working on scaling the ADAM platform and on algorithms for asteroid detection. Before joining the University of Washington, Spencer spent 8 years working in the software industry. His focus is on software quality and performance.
Aidan Beeres, ADAM Software Developer BS, University of Washington, Astronomy + Physics Aidan is a software developer working with the FindOrb integrator and writing validation packages to use in ADAM. He plans to apply to graduate school in coming years to earn a PhD in Astronomy.
Rebecca Schembri, Public Communications Manager Harvard, Social Astro Science Rebecca assists with web presence, social media, copywriting, and public affairs. She graduates from Harvard University in 2022 with a degree in Social Science and Legal Studies and is Harvard-certified in Professional Communication.
* This list does not represent all of the Researchers and Collaborators at the Asteroid Institute.
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RESEARCHERS & COLLABORATORS
THANK YOU DAVID, WELCOME PETER
Our organization has benefited over the years from strong, experienced leadership with Dr. David Liddle chairing the board. His passion for our work and our vision is palpable. He has been at the helm of many leading organizations including partner at U.S. Venture Partners, CEO of Interval Research Corporation, co-founder and CEO of Metaphor Computer Systems. David has held executive positions at Xerox and IBM and served on the board of Inphi Corporation and The New York Times. David retired from our board of directors this year, and while he won’t be far, we will miss his wit, humor, and deep understanding of our technical work. Whether it was opening a door to connections or asking tough questions, David guided the evolution of our organization, and we are grateful for his leadership and wisdom. Our board presented David with a flag, which our co-founder Rusty Schweickart took on Apollo 9, in recognition for David’s incredible contributions. And what better way to transition to the next phase, than by announcing Peter Schwartz as our incoming Board Chair. Peter is an internationally renowned futurist and business strategist who serves as the senior vice president for Global Government Relations and Strategic Planning at Salesforce. His research and scenario work encompasses the fastmoving world of connected business, energy resources and the environment, technology, telecommunications, media and entertainment, aerospace, and national security. Peter co-founded the Global Business Network, the premier scenarios-based consultancy, described as an “information hunting and gathering company.” In his early career, he led the scenario team at Royal Dutch/Shell. Peter has written several books on a variety of future-oriented topics. His first book, The Art of the Long View, is considered to be the seminal publication on scenario planning and is used as a textbook by many business schools. He has worked as a consultant on several movies, including Minority Report, Deep Impact, Sneakers, and WarGames. In addition to joining our board, he serves on the Long Now Foundation board.
THANK YOU DAVID, WELCOME PETER
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ASTEROID INSTITUTE ON RISK, PROGRESS, AND HOPE By Rusty Schweickart Six years ago we decided to create a movement called Asteroid Day — I want to tell you why, and why it matters. Shortly after our 2002 launch of B612 Foundation, we realized that there was a huge geopolitical component to the planetary-defense challenge. This realization is best summarized in the statement “people (read nations, states) not initially at risk in an impact threat will have to accept a temporary increase in risk during a deflection in order to eliminate the threat to all.” In effect, during a deflection, the impact point is dragged from its original location across the Earth until it misses, passing either ahead of or behind the Earth. Risk shifting is inseparable from deflection. Knowing this, I founded and chaired the Association of Space Explorer’s (ASE’s) Near Earth Objects (NEO) Committee in 2005, and in 2008 we brought the issue into COPUOS (UN Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Space) for resolution and action in the form of our ASE report, Asteroid Threats: A Call for Global Response. After several years of conversation and debate, COPUOS (with UN General Assembly support) formed the two current organizations working on the many geopolitical issues involved in responding to an impact threat: the International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) and the Space Missions Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG). Progress. Deflecting an asteroid impact (likely sooner than we thought given the capabilities we’re developing through THOR and ADAM) will be a planetary decision. Because of risk shifting and sharing, it will be a very contentious deliberation. With international politicians discussing and debating the issues, an understanding from the general public will be critical if rational decisions are to be made. This is something we’ve seen fail during the COVID pandemic. When science and data are perceived as political, rational decisions are impossible. This is not something the UN alone can handle. We formed Asteroid Day to bring the asteroid-impact challenge to the general public. Now, global discussions about asteroids are more frequent. And, perhaps most importantly, they are better understood. As we move into the next year, toward an understanding of the threats and opportunities that asteroids might offer through programs like Asteroid Day, we are armed not just with the technology to protect this planet, but also with the knowledge that it’s possible.
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ON RISK, PROGRESS, AND HOPE
THE ASTEROID INSTITUTE HONORS CAROLYN SHOEMAKER B612 and the Asteroid Institute express their deepest gratitude for the contributions Carolyn Shoemaker made in the field of astronomy and to the detection of asteroids in the solar system. She has been a valued advisor to the Asteroid Institute, as well as instrumental in the launch of Asteroid Day and advocating for increased asteroid and planetary-science education and funding. Carolyn discovered Comet SL-9 with her husband Gene Shoemaker and astronomer David Levy in 1993. Throughout her life she found over 800 asteroids and 32 comets, bringing proof that searching the universe does not hinge on profession or gender — Carolyn was an amateur astronomer. It was Carolyn and Gene’s work that led to NASA’s NEAR Shoemaker mission, in which a spacecraft orbited and landed on an asteroid for the first time. A breakthrough venture, NEAR’s 25th anniversary was the theme of this year’s Asteroid Day program activities. Carolyn passed away on August 13, 2021. We will miss her kind spirit and enthusiasm for inspiring the next generation of astronomers.
Left to right: Gene and Carolyn Shoemaker at the K-T boundary in Gubbio, Italy (top); Carolyn Shoemaker with Planetary Scientist Dan Durda’s mother (bottom); Ed, Carolyn, and Rusty at the Planetary Defense Conference, 2013 (top); Gene and Carolyn (bottom); Astronomer Carolyn Shoemaker 1929–2021
HONORING CAROLYN SHOEMAKER
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ASTEROID
EDUCATION
ASTEROID DAY GLOBAL This year Asteroid Day 2021 was celebrated with hundreds of events with experts from around the world. Several members of the Asteroid Institute crew participated in virtual events including Dr. Ed Lu and Dr. Lynne Jones. Of special interest, this year Asteroid Day’s global program theme celebrated the 25th launch anniversary of NASA’s NEAR Shoemaker mission. The program also celebrated three new asteroid related launches including the DART (Double Asteroid Redirect Test) mission, which is the world’s first mission to test an asteroid deflection. We were incredibly happy to see returning and new independent Asteroid Day event registrations. Like last year, event organizers produced their own independent events, with the majority being virtual. In this way, organizers from different countries were able to participate in the same event through webinars, sharing knowledge, and attracting a diverse audience and speakers. The photos on the next page tell a small part of the global story. Social media platforms like Instagram and TikTok were also used by organizers to publish short videocasts and information about Asteroid Day. Events were hosted in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Canada, El Salvador, France, Iceland, India, Israel, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Russia, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the United Arab Emirates to name just a few. We continue to see organizers send in their post-event reports. We are humbled by the continued support of these global educators. Despite all obstacles placed on them and their communities this past year, they rallied together to educate the world about the risks and opportunities that asteroids present to humanity. As the first founding partner of Asteroid Day, we are pleased to see Asteroid Day’s global reach and are proud that the global effort has sustained its momentum throughout the course of the pandemic. All of this year’s Luxembourg-produced programs can be found on YouTube and the Asteroid Day website.
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ASTEROID DAY GLOBAL
ASTEROID
EDUCATION
The Asteroid Education program increases awareness about asteroids and science through public speaking and exposure in the media. In addition to Asteroid Day, this year we shared stories about our work and why the world should learn more about asteroids. We have highlighted a few public education activities from this last year.
Dr. Ed Lu
Dr. Ed Lu
CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
CHABOT SPACE & SCIENCE CENTER
Dr. Ed Lu joined Ryan Wyatt of the Morrison
Chabot Space & Science Center teen Galaxy
Planetarium at the Cal Academy for a
Explorers interviewed Dr. Ed Lu during their
“Cosmic Conversation,” discussing how we
Asteroid Day program. The students came
can find potentially hazardous space rocks
with great questions about asteroids, the
and the usefulness of a multidimensional
work of the Asteroid Institute, and how B612
map of asteroid locations in space and time.
got its name.
February
June
Dr. Lynne Jones TELLUS MUSEUM On Asteroid Day, Dr. Lynne Jones, Asteroid Institute Collaborator was the special guest at the Tellus Museum program and discussed all things asteroid discovery!
22
ASTEROID EDUCATION
Dr. Sarah Greenstreet
Meteor Crater Expedition 21
PHYSICS TODAY
WINSLOW, ARIZONA
Asteroid Institute Researcher Dr. Sarah
Asteroid Institute researchers, scientists, and
Greenstreet was featured in Physics Today
supporters, along with a small group from
describing how models and observations of
TED descended in Meteor Crater in Arizona
asteroid orbits reveal their dynamic lives.
to learn about asteroid impacts.
July
September
October
Danica Remy
Danica Remy + Dr. Ed Lu
THE EXPLORERS CLUB’S GLOBAL
IMAGINATION IN ACTION
EXPLORATION SUMMIT (GLEX)
Imagination in Action is a virtual series,
GLEX brings together the world’s leading
featuring some of the world’s most compelling
explorers to share innovations to propel us
people, sharing how they’ve taken their
toward the future of exploration. This year
imagination and turned it into action.
Danica Remy presented in Lisbon, Portugal to discuss the space map of the future.
ASTEROID EDUCATION
23
FOUNDING CIRCLE ANONYMOUS x 7
Glaser Progress Foundation
ANONYMOUS LEADERSHIP GIFT*
Dane Glasgow
Bill Anders
Steve and Julie Grimm
Geoffrey Baehr
Garrett Gruener and Amy Slater
William K. Bowes, Jr. Foundation
VK Hsu & Sons Foundation Ltd.
Brian Burton and James Mercer,
James D. and Justin Jameson
Broken Bells
Margaret Jonsson Family Foundation
Don Carlson
Steve Jurvetson*
Vinton and Sigrid Cerf
Dominik Kaiser
Y (Lmc) Chapman
Steve Krausz
Emily and David Corrigan
Vladas Lašas
Asa Denton
James Leszczenski
Esther Dyson
David Liddle and Ruthann Quindlen
Alan Eustace
Suzanna Mak
Sasha Galitsky
Greg McAdoo
Eliot Gillum
Scott McGregor and Laurie Girand
*Leadership Gift ($1 M–$5 M)
24
FOUNDING CIRCLE
ASTEROID CIRCLE John Montrym
Rick Armstrong
Matt Mullenweg
Barringer Crater Company
Diane Murphy
Rodney Brooks
Peter Norvig
Jim Chervenak
Shervin Pishevar
Lynn and Anisya Fritz
The Peggy Rawls Family Fund
Arthur Gleckler and Kristine Kelly
Ray Rothrock
Jensen Huang
Edwin Sahakian
The Explorers Club
Rusty Schweickart and Nancy Ramsey
Tito’s Handmade Vodka
Tim Trueman Robert C. and Fallon B. Vaughn Matthew and Sarah Welty Ben Wheeler Yishan Wong and Kimberly Algeri-Wong Matthew Wyndowe
Pictured at Meteor Crater in Arizona, September 2021: (left to right) Henk Rogers, Scott Manley, Deborah Kattler Kupetz, Annemarie Smith-Morris, Aaron Morris, Rodney Brooks, Mary Sharon, Rick Armstrong, Matthew Biddulph, Ariel Waldman, James Yoder, Spencer Nelson, Mario Juric, Kat Kiker, AJ Forsythe, Hillary Aiken, Sam Waldman, Edwin Sahakian, Zarik Boghossian, Ed Lu, Anousheh Ansari, Christopher Classen, Steve Smith, Lisa McBride, Henk Rogers (again!), Linus Pasin, Robert Pasin ASTEROID CIRCLE
25
We have donors from 46 countries.
COMMUNITY OF SUPPORTERS Gifts $500–$24,999*
AGI, Inc (in kind)
Bob Mcintosh
Randy Schweickart
Richard Bowen
Kenneth Menges
Joshua Slocum
Charles Brady
Jonathan Nagin
Rick Stawicki
Joseph Brown
Richard Nash
Cynthia Stroum
John Clendenin
William O’Donnell
Hal Varian
John Conery
Drummond Pike
Rogers Weed
George Cornecelli
Mitchell Portnoy
Al Werner
Al Ender
Allan Posner
Lawrence Wilkinson
Joseph Fischer
George Powell
Charley and Bob Zeches
Patrick Garvey
Art & Martha Reynolds
Google Inc (in kind)
David and Abby Rumsey
Keith Hughes
Eric Ryan
Robert Jedicke
Edwin Sahakian
Steven Jordan
Scott Schneider
Sam Lichtenstein
Rolf Schreiber
* From September 1, 2020, to October 1, 2021
Clouds over the Canary Islands, by Ed Lu from the ISS
26
COMMUNITY OF SUPPORTERS
GOVERNING BOARD
B612 FOUNDATION
HEADQUARTERED
Peter Schwartz, Chair
Danica Remy, President
IN SILICON VALLEY
Geoffrey Baehr Dr. Clark Chapman Dr. Dan Durda Garrett Gruener
Hillary Aiken, Vice President Joelle Byars, Writer & Operations Rebecca Schembri, Public Communications Alex Shwe, Operations
Dr. Ed Lu, Co-Founder
www.b612foundation.org
Lawrence Wilkinson
ASTEROID INSTITUTE, A PROGRAM OF B612
ASTEROID DAY, A PROGRAM OF B612
Dr. Ed Lu, Executive Director
Dr. Brian May, Co-Founder, United Kingdom Danica Remy, Co-Founder, California, USA
Dr. Scott Hubbard, Mission Strategist
Grig Richters, Co-Founder, Germany Rusty Schweickart, Co-Founder, California, USA
Dr. Harold Reitsema, Mission Director Jeff Rothermel, Avionics Engineer Dr. Sam Waldman, Avionics Engineer
Colleen Fiaschetti Program Director, Luxembourg Rhea Abdo, Social Media, France
ADAM PROJECT TEAM
Max Alexander, Photographer, United Kingdom
John Carrico, Project Manager and Astrodynamicist
Amine Benzerga, Video Production, France
Aidan Berres, Software Developer
Saulo Machado, Global Event Coordinator, Brazil
Dr. Siegfried Eggl, Research Collaborator Carise Fernandez, Senior Engineer Hank Grabowski, Engineer and Astrodynamicist Dr. Sarah Greenstreet, Senior Researcher Dr. Lynne Jones, Research Collaborator Dr. Mario Juric, Research Collaborator Kathleen Kiker, Software Engineer Emmie King, Software Engineer Joachim Moeyens, Research Collaborator Spencer Nelson, Data Scientist and Software Engineer Mike Loucks, Astrodynamicist Samira Motiwala, Astrodynamicist Allan Posner, Engineer and Astrodynamicist Dr. Vivek Vittaldev, Mission Researcher
20 Sunnyside Ave., Suite F Mill Valley, CA 94941 United States Phone 650-644-4539
Danica Remy, President
Dr. Marc Buie, Mission Scientist
MAILING ADDRESS
Stuart Clark, Editorial Director, United Kingdom
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