Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) are asteroids and comets that travel around the Sun like Earth does, but whose orbits can bring them into Earth’s neighborhood - within 30 million miles Earth’s orbit. In fact, NEOs are comets and asteroids that have been nudged by the gravitational attraction of nearby planets into orbits that allow them to enter the Earth’s neighborhood.

Small asteroids are detected passing between Earth and the Moon’s orbit several times a month. Meteoroids – very small fragments of asteroids and comets – hit Earth’s atmosphere and explode virtually every day, causing the bright meteor events that people see at night and sometimes leaving remnants – meteorites – on the ground.

“Planetary Defence” encompasses all the capabilities needed to detect the potential and warn of asteroid or comet impacts with Earth, and then either prevent them or otherwise mitigate their possible effects. Planetary defence can be considered as “applied planetary science” to address the NEO impact hazard.

Planetary defense involves:
• Finding and tracking near-Earth objects that pose of hazard of impacting Earth;
• Characterizing those objects to determine their orbit trajectory, size, shape, mass, composition, rotational dynamics and other parameters, so that experts can determine the severity of the potential impact event, warn of its timing and potential effects, and determine the means to mitigate the impact; and
• Planning and implementation of measures to deflect or disrupt an object on an impact course with Earth, or to mitigate the effects of an impact that cannot be prevented. Mitigation measures that can be taken on Earth to protect lives and property include evacuation of the impact area and movement of critical infrastructure.
This session aims to present existing Planetary Defence outreach efforts. In addition, a penultimate goal of this session is to invite outreach professionals to introduce already existing programs that would be applicable or leveraged into the communication of Planetary Defence. Such programs do not necessarily need to focus on small bodies or NEOs, but could also be leveraged to Planetary Defence outreach efforts.