Key changes will make hazard prediction better — not that we need to worry yet.
, reporting the objects with calculated orbits most at risk to Earth.
But Sentry-II also includes a key upgrade that will make its assessments more accurate: taking into account theThe Yarkovsky effect happens when sunlight is absorbed by the surface of the asteroid and re-emitted as heat. This heat emission has a subtle, but powerful effect on the path of an asteroid through space — and may affect the space rock's probability of hitting Earth.
Astronomers have known about the Yarkovsky effect for decades, however, it's only recently that computer software became powerful enough to handle analyzing the effect on large datasets. Sentry-II will allow JPL to assess potential impacts with odds as small as a few chances in 10 million, the agency said.
"The fact that Sentry couldn't automatically handle the Yarkovsky effect was a limitation," Davide Farnocchia, a JPL navigation engineer who also helped develop Sentry-II, said in aThe lack of Yarkovsky calculations in the original Sentry system meant that astrophysicists had to do manual analyses every time they ran across a"special case" asteroid, Farnocchia noted.
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