 | |
| Agency overview | |
|---|---|
| Formed | January 2016 (2016-01) |
| Jurisdiction | United States |
| Headquarters | Washington, D.C. |
| Motto | Hic Servare Diem (Latin) "Here to Save the Day"[1] |
| Agency executive |
|
| Parent department | Science Mission Directorate, Planetary Science Division |
| Parent agency | NASA |
| Website | nasa |
ThePlanetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) is aplanetary defense organization established in January 2016 withinNASA's Planetary Science Division of theScience Mission Directorate.[3] It includes a Near Earth Observations Program which funds telescopic searches and orbit calculations.[4]
Its mission is to look for and cataloguenear-Earth objects such ascomets,asteroids, andpotentially hazardous objects that could impact Earth, as well as help the U.S. government prepare for a potentialimpact event (and coordinate efforts to mitigate and deflect potential threats if one is detected).[5]
NASA is a signatory to theInternational Asteroid Warning Network, operated by theUnited Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs.
In 2005, theU.S. Congress passed theNASA Authorization Act, which, in part, tasked NASA with finding and cataloguing at least 90% of allnear-Earth objects that are 140 meters or larger by 2020.[6][7] However, that goal was clearly not being met by NASA's Near Earth Object Observations Program, which a 2014 report by theNASA Office of Inspector General pointed out.[8] In June 2015,NASA andNational Nuclear Security Administration of theU.S. Department of Energy, which had been studying impact events on their own, signed an agreement to work in cooperation.[9]
In January 2016, NASA officially announced the establishment of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO), appointing Lindley Johnson to lead it as Planetary Defense Officer.[5][10][11] The PDCO was given the job of cataloging and tracking potentially hazardousnear-Earth objects (NEO), such asasteroids andcomets, larger than 30–50 meters in diameter (compare to the 20-meterChelyabinsk meteor that exploded over Russia in 2013) and coordinating an effective threat response and mitigation effort.[12][13]
It has been a part of several key NASA missions, includingOSIRIS-REx,[14]NEOWISE, andDouble Asteroid Redirection Test (DART). For NEOWISE, NASA worked with theJet Propulsion Laboratory, to investigate various impact-threat scenarios in order to learn the best approach to the threat of an incoming impactor. The office would continue to use thepolar orbitinginfrared telescopeNEOWISE, decommissioned in August 2024, to detect anypotentially hazardous objects.[15]
Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a joint project between NASA and theJohns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, is the first planetary defense mission of NASA.[16] In November 2021, the DART spacecraft was launched with the goal of seeing if it could "alter anasteroid's path, a technique that may be used to defend the planet in the future".[6] The attempt was successful.
The 1998twin filmsDeep Impact andArmageddon tell a fictional story of an asteroid impact event and efforts to avert it through planetary defense operations.
The 2021 movieDon't Look Up is about a "planet killer"comet, in which the Planetary Defense Officer is played byRob Morgan.[17] PDCO chief Lindley Johnson vetted an early draft of thescreenplay over two years before the film's 2021 release.[18]
This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in thepublic domain.