Julien De Wit and Artem Burdanov talk planetary defense on WCVB’s Chronicle
Watch the video: At MIT, groundbreaking ideas blend science and detection innovation
Chronicle, the WCVB-TV Boston newsmagazine, recently aired a feature piece on MIT’s culture of creative thinking and interdisciplinary innovation — with EAPS Associate Professor Julien de Wit and Research Scientist Artem Burdanov kicking off the opening segment to talk about their novel work in asteroid detection and planetary defense.
Last year, when the relatively small and stealthy asteroid 2024 YR4 was first detected, initial calculations set off alarm bells about a possible collision course with Earth in 2032. While continued tracking and calculations eventually refined the statistical chances of an Earth impact down to near zero, the surprise detection of a previously-unknown near-Earth object (NEO) brought a renewed spotlight on the need for early detection, more accurate orbit tracking, and scientific collaboration for planetary defense. De Wit and Burdanov sat down with Chronicle’s producers to talk about their newly-discovered asteroid detection method which layers multiple infrared images collected by the James Webb Space Telescope to enable identification and tracking of multitudes more small NEOs (up to 100x smaller) than ever before.
