World Asteroid Day finds University researchers working to save the planet

Published On Fri 30 Jun 2017 by Cara Longmuir

World Asteroid Day today (June 30) finds researchers at the University of Dundee continuing work to protect the Earth from potential future impacts.

Asteroid Day marks the anniversary of the largest recent asteroid impact on Earth, in Siberia in 1908. It is a global awareness campaign to promote learning about asteroids and the hazards of future asteroid impacts on Earth.

Scientists in the University’s School of Science and Engineering have developed PANGU (Planet and Asteroid Natural scene Generation Utility), a piece of software which generates images of asteroids, planetary surfaces and other small bodies.

PANGU can generate realistic images of the asteroids which can be used to test the navigation and guidance systems of spacecraft to approach and land on the surface. This could include missions to potentially dangerous near-Earth asteroids to reduce the likelihood of them hitting the Earth.

Dr Iain Martin, one of the team who has developed PANGU, said, “If a near-Earth asteroid was identified as posing a risk to Earth, a low-resolution shape model could be created from the currently known data, then enhanced by PANGU to create a high-resolution model.

“Different mission scenarios to approach, land or hit the asteroid could then be simulated using PANGU to provide high-quality, representative images of the asteroid.”

The software is now being used by the European Space Agency to support future missions to asteroids and other planetary surfaces.

PANGU has been developed at the University of Dundee for nearly 20 years, supported by around a million pounds of funding in total from ESA.

Dundee is a world leader in research on spacecraft technology, including the SpaceWire standard which is being used in many spacecraft by space organisations across the world, and the PANGU planet and asteroid simulation tool which is being used by ESA to help design navigation systems for future planetary landers. Environmental data from satellites has been received at Dundee since 1978 resulting in an extremely valuable archive of data for environmental change monitoring and other applications. The Space Technology Centre was formally opened by Lord Sainsbury in 2005

For media enquiries contact:
Cara Longmuir
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University of Dundee
Nethergate, Dundee, DD1 4HN
Tel: +44 (0)1382 385243
Email: c.z.longmuir@dundee.ac.uk