Set up an asteroid pedigree near Earth

The US Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA) said data transmitted from the WISE spacecraft provided a new genealogy of belt asteroids between Mars and Jupiter.

Millions of infrared images recorded by NASA's WISE spacecraft in an all-sky survey, called NEOWISE , helped identify the identity of the new asteroid '' families '' , Space.com reported. from the Dynamics Laboratory in Pasadena, California.

Describe an asteroid production collision - (Photo: NASA / JPL-Caltech)

In it, an asteroid family was formed when a fiery clash occurred in space, exploding into parts of a giant celestial body.

The first photographs helped to arrange thousands of previously unclassified and unclassified asteroids, an important step to understanding the origins of asteroid families as well as created collisions. out them.

'NEOWISE has provided data that allows us to get a very detailed view of the evolution of asteroids in the solar system , ' says Lindley Johnson of the Program for Observing the Near-Earth Objects ( NEO) at NASA headquarters in Washington.

Ms. Johnson said this will help the experts once again source the NEO's and find out why some migrate to orbit that threaten the Earth.

The main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter is a key source of near-Earth objects, identified as asteroids and comets that reach 45 million kilometers of the Earth's orbit. around the sun.