Our Mission
IAWN was established (2013) as a result of the UN-endorsed recommendations for an international response to a potential NEO impact threat, to create an international group of organizations involved in detecting, tracking, and characterizing NEOs. The IAWN is tasked with developing a strategy using well-defined communication plans and protocols to assist Governments in the analysis of asteroid impact consequences and in the planning of mitigation responses.
Currently, IAWN includes members from Europe, Asia, South and North America.
Observers Twitter feed
Tweets from some of our observing signatories and other active asteroid observers.
A Twitter List by SBNarchiveSignatories Twitter feed
Tweets from some of our institutional signatories (may have non-asteroid news as well).
A Twitter List by SBNarchiveNEO News
Arecibo Observatory's 305-meter telescope suffers collapse
(1 Dec 2020) After suffering two irreversible cable failures, the Arecibo 305m radio dish had a final catastrophic failure when the 900 ton instrument platform fell early on 1 Dec.
Read More: NSF Release
Community Announcement
Planetary Defense Conference 2021
The 7th IAA Planetary Defense Conference in 2021 is being hosted by the UN Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA), and will take place April 26-30, 2021.
Read More: Conference Webpage
NEO News
Apophis Observing Campaign 2021
(09 Oct 2020) The campaign will be modeled on our experience from the two previous campaigns to find out if we can conduct a successful, coordinated observing campaign with relatively short lead time to assess the hazard potential of a large NEA.
Read More: Apophis Campaign
Close Approaches
Asteriod designation: 2021 AS2
Discovery station: Mt. Lemmon Survey
Close approach date (UTC): 2021 01 09.40
Close approach distance (× lunar distance): 0.28
Discovery announcement
Latest orbit & observations
Latest from IAWN
Borisov's Discovery Telescope
Courtesy: G. Borisov
Welcoming 5 new IAWN members!
(Dec 2020) The IAWN Steering Committee has approved several more members since the summer. They are:
- Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics of the Russian Academy of Sciences (KIAM RAS)
- Agenzia Spaziale Italiana (ASI)
- Baldone Astrophysical Observatory, Latvia
- Osservatorio Astronomico "G.V. SCHIAPARELLI", Italy
- Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur (OCA)