F49620-92-J-0051 DEF

The AFOSR support of the Spacewatch program has accomplished a success of historical importance in planetary science and in sky surveillance for the protection of life in the United States and elsewhere. Especially in these last three years a completely new set of techniques and equipment in electronic detection of moving objects has been put to work in a convincing manner of discoveries. The AFOSR Spacewatch System is the talk of the town and recognized by the United States Congress and in foreign countries. It has become the prototype in the forefront of the solution to the life-threatening problem of impacts on Earth due to comets and asteroids, a problem which has come toward the forefront of public attention. Regarding astrophysical research, an increasing number of moving objects in the solar system is found per year, positions are distributed electronically to others. Our own usage of the discoveries is to study magnitude-frequency relations for a variety of populations in the solar system, such as comets, Centaurs, main-belt asteroids, and objects that can come into the Earth's vicinity. For the near-Earth objects, the discovery rate now is about 25 per year, and expected to increase. These are followed up as much as possible in order to obtain the best possible orbits. The origin of 10-m objects, we call "Ariunas, " is being studied, as is the chaotic behavior of large Centaurs in the outer parts of the solar system. Regarding the new techniques in sky surveillance, there still is lively progress and improvement for the old 0.9-m Spacewatch Telescope, with the development of new scanning techniques, computer programs, and optical devices. The construction of the 1.8-m Spacewatch Telescope is well under way. It is a device of great research interest, even for future generations of planetary scientists. It is of importance as a prototype for future instruments in sky surveillance. It has a compact and stiff design