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A. Morbidelli (CNRS, Observatory of Nice, France), W.F. Bottke (Center for Radiophysics and Space Research, Cornell University), R. Jedicke (Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, University of Arizona), B. Gladman, J.M. Petit (CNRS, Observatory of Nice, France)
Having quantitatively determined both the observational biases associated with Near--Earth asteroids and the relative contribution of their most important sources, (see abstract by Bottke et al.) we have been able to model the debiased orbital and magnitude distribution of the NEAs. We can therefore now address several fundamental issues relevant to NEA studies, only some of which will be presented at this meeting:
o) compare our derived population with the distribution of NEAs discovered so far, and discuss which kind of asteroids are most severely biased against discovery
o) estimate the fraction of the Aten, Apollos, and Amors which have been found so far and how many above a certain size still need to be detected in each population.
o) suggest how the current surveys should be modified in order to detect these bodies.
o) evaluate the total number of NEAs brighter than H=18, and revise the requirements for a ``Spaceguard Survey'' system to achieve the NASA goal of finding 90% or more of the D > 1 km NEAs within a decade.
o) compute the interval between km--sized impacts on Earth,
o) estimate the flux rate of material coming from the main belt needed to keep the NEAs in steady-state.
o) assess the contribution of material from each source, and in particular how many NEAs are likely to come from the inner belt vs. the outer belt. and compare this result with spectroscopic data.
The author(s) of this abstract have provided an email address for comments about the abstract: morby@obs-nice.fr