5:15 PM - 6:45 PM
[M-ZZ45] Planetary defense - what should we do?
Activities that deal with the problems of collisions of small solar system bodies such as asteroids and comets with the Earth are called Planetary Defense or Spaceguard. These activities began in earnest in the 1990s, and now, nearly 30 years later, there has been remarkable progress. More than 30,000 Near Earth Objects (NEOs) have been discovered so far, and spacecraft have been sent to about 10 NEOs. Furthermore, in September 2022, the DART mission of the United States made an attempt to change the orbit of an asteroid. In the future, NEO missions such as ESA's Hera, OSIRIS-APEX, an extended mission of OSIRIS-REx in the United States, and Hayabusa2#, an extended mission of Japan's Hayabusa2, will be carried out. Internationally, a wide range of activities such as discussions in groups established under the United Nations, international conferences, and outreach activities are actively carried out. Based on this situation, in this session, we will summarize the current situation from various perspectives such as observation and exploration, theoretical/technical research, and social science research on NEO and planetary defense, and discuss what kind of research or action should be taken from now on.