Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research

Lincoln Near Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR, English for Lincoln Institute for Research near-Earth asteroids ) is a project of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for monitoring sky with the aim of a collision with the Earth to discover all near-Earth asteroids in time. The GEODSS instruments used for the project are installed on the test site of the Lincoln Institute at the White Sands Missile Range in Socorro in the U.S. state of New Mexico. The data collected will be sent for evaluation to the Lincoln Institute at Hanscom Air Force Base in Lexington, Massachusetts.

Discoveries

The project is funded by the U.S. Air Force and the U.S. space agency NASA. Since the project began in the year 1996 231.082 new objects have been identified, including 2019 confirmed Earth's orbit cruiser (as of 15 September 2011).

As part of the monitoring program, numerous comets have been discovered; as of September 15, 2011, there were 279 confirmed comet. All these comets therefore have the name portion of LINEAR or - if the discovery at the same time succeeded another observer or other observer group - a combined, such as LINEAR - NEAT. Of particular importance is the comet named C/2002 T7 (LINEAR ), which was discovered on 14 October 2002 and in May 2004, reaching an apparent magnitude of about.

Around the same time, the comet C/2001 Q4 also reached (NEAT ) maximum brightness, so that the same could be seen from the southern hemisphere of the earth two recognizable with the naked eye, bright comets. For observers in the northern hemisphere the visibility conditions were for the comet C/2002 T7 (LINEAR ) unfavorable.

Also noteworthy is the comet 1999-s4.html">C/1999 S4 ( LINEAR), broke its core when approaching the sun in August 1999 in numerous pieces. The comet broke up in the episode within a few days practically completely.