Astronomers have recognized the search for potentially hazardous objects (POO) using ground-based observatories as futile. The authors published a preprint dedicated to the research on the arXiv.org website.
Scientists came to their conclusions after analyzing the statistics of detections of near-Earth objects by several observatories, in particular, the Goldstone Observatory (Mojave Desert, California, USA), the Green Bank radio telescope (West Virginia, USA) and Arecibo Observatory (Puerto Rico)
Scientists have recognized the insufficiently complete and untimely detection of near-Earth objects by ground-based means of observation, some of which can be attributed to VET. In 2015, the Arecibo Observatory and the 70-meter radio telescope of the Goldstone Observatory together were able to detect 276 unique near-Earth objects (respectively 253 and 131 separately).
In fact, Arecibo detected 95 near-Earth objects, and the Goldstone Observatory - 39 (that is, about 38 and 30 percent of the maximum possible number). Most new near-Earth objects are detected less than 15 days before the closure of their observation window from Earth. Half of the detected asteroids have absolute stellar magnitudes greater than 25, which corresponds to diameters less than or equal to 30 meters (the Chelyabinsk meteorite had a diameter of about 20 meters before entering the Earth's atmosphere).
The data obtained by scientists indicate the need to increase the sensitivity when observing with ground-based telescopes and pay more attention to tracking asteroids from near-Earth satellites. Even if a ground-based telescope detects a POI, there may be too little time to react to its approach.