Speaker
Description
The Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) is scheduled to be launched in 2035 with the primary purpose of detecting gravity waves. This research analyzes LISA potential to detect Near Earth Objects (NEO) as a secondary purpose. This potential was assessed by examining the orbital paths of currently known asteroids to determine the minimal distance between LISA’s path and the NEOs. This distance was used to calculate gravitational accelerations on LISA and compared to its instrumental precision. Then, Monte-Carlo simulations were run in order to determine the much larger scope of yet undetected NEO’s. Through these methods, we found LISA’s ability to detect NEO’s to be limited; only Asteroids with a large mass and in close proximity are detectable.
