Efficiency of a wide-area survey in achieving short- and long-term warning for small impactors

TL;DR

This paper evaluates a telescope network's ability to detect small impactors in the near-Earth space, focusing on early warning times to enable mitigation, and finds it could significantly enhance current detection efforts within 10 years.

Contribution

It introduces a performance assessment of a wide-area survey network for early detection of small impactors, highlighting its potential to provide timely warnings.

Findings

50% of impactors detected with at least one week warning within 10 years

Survey can significantly improve early warning capabilities for small impactors

Network complements existing NEO discovery efforts effectively

Abstract

We consider a network of telescopes capable of scanning all the observable sky each night and targeting Near-Earth objects (NEOs) in the size range of the Tunguska-like asteroids, from 160 m down to 10 m. We measure the performance of this telescope network in terms of the time needed to discover at least 50% of the impactors in the considered population with a warning time large enough to undertake proper mitigation actions. The warning times are described by a trimodal distribution and the telescope network has a 50% probability of discovering an impactor of the Tunguska class with at least one week of advance already in the first 10 yr of operations of the survey. These results suggest that the studied survey would be a significant addition to the current NEO discovery efforts.