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Can the VLA and VLBA be used to Detect Rouge Asteroids?

-- | April 3, 2014

Question: I’m wondering if the VLA/VLBA dedicates any observation time keeping an eye out for rouge asteroids which might intersect near our orbit? — Doug

Answer: The Very Large Array (VLA) and Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA) are not well suited to the task of monitoring the skies for asteroids that might intersect Earth’s orbit. The main problem is that asteroids are not strong emitters of radio frequency emission. Also, the areal response for a particular measurement made with the VLA and VLBA are rather small in size, making it hard for them to survey large areas of sky for asteroids.

Jeff Mangum

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