Japanese Spaceguard Association
Encyclopedia
The is a not-for-profit organization based in Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. Its aim echoes that of The Spaceguard Foundation
The Spaceguard Foundation
The Spaceguard Foundation is a private organization based in Frascati, Italy, whose purpose is to study, discover and observe near-Earth objects and protect the Earth from the possible threat of their collision...

 and other spaceguard
Spaceguard
The term Spaceguard loosely refers to a number of efforts to discover and study near-Earth objects . Asteroids are discovered by telescopes which repeatedly survey large areas of sky. Efforts which concentrate on discovering NEOs are considered part of the "Spaceguard Survey," regardless of which...

 movements: to protect the Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

's environment from a disastrous near-Earth object
Near-Earth object
A near-Earth object is a Solar System object whose orbit brings it into close proximity with the Earth. All NEOs have a perihelion distance less than 1.3 AU. They include a few thousand near-Earth asteroids , near-Earth comets, a number of solar-orbiting spacecraft, and meteoroids large enough to...

 (NEO) collision by studying and observing the NEOs. Its formal status under the Japanese law is .

The association operates the Bisei Spaceguard Center
Bisei Spaceguard Center
The Bisei Spaceguard Center was established solely to track Asteroids and space debris. This debris, along with defunct spaceships, satellites as well as other small objects can present a hazard to operating spacecraft...

 to achieve their goal. It is located near Bisei
Bisei, Okayama
was a town located in Oda District, Okayama, Japan.On March 1, 2005 Bisei, along with the town of Yoshii, from Shitsuki District, was merged into the city of Ibara....

 town, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...

. In addition to the search for NEOs, this facility will be used to track debris in Earth
Earth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...

orbit.

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