I am happy to announce the latest round of winners in our Shoemaker Near Earth Object (NEO) Grant program, named after pioneering planetary geologist Gene Shoemaker. Shoemaker grants support very advanced amateur astronomers around the world in their efforts to find, track, and characterize near Earth asteroids.

The world's professional sky surveys alone cannot handle the burden of defending the Earth from potentially dangerous asteroids. Our Shoemaker grant winners contribute in particular to two areas of planetary defense:

Characterization : Some winners focus on asteroid characterization to determine asteroid properties. They typically carry out photometry (brightness) studies to determine properties like spin rate and whether what looks like one asteroid is actually two asteroids—a binary pair. This type of information will be crucial when an asteroid deflection is required, and in the meantime, for understanding the near-Earth asteroid population in general.

: Some winners focus on asteroid characterization to determine asteroid properties. They typically carry out photometry (brightness) studies to determine properties like spin rate and whether what looks like one asteroid is actually two asteroids—a binary pair. This type of information will be crucial when an asteroid deflection is required, and in the meantime, for understanding the near-Earth asteroid population in general. Tracking: Other winners focus on astrometric (sky position) tracking observations that are necessary for calculating orbits, which tells us whether an asteroid will hit Earth. Without these follow-up observations of newly discovered asteroids, the asteroids can even be lost.

This round’s winners continue a long tradition of Planetary Society-supported planetary defense, protecting the Earth from the threat of asteroid impacts. In this round of grants, 6 proposals are awarded a total of $57,906. The winners are from 4 countries on 3 continents. Over the 22-year history of the program, approximately $440,000 has been granted to 62 winners in 19 countries on 6 continents.