[meteorite-list] NASA Response to Recent Paper on NEOWISE Asteroid Size Results

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 27 May 2016 17:26:10 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <201605280026.u4S0QAAB012923_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?feature=6518

NASA Response to Recent Paper on NEOWISE Asteroid Size Results
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
May 25, 2016

A paper posted Sunday by Nathan Myhrvold to ArXiv.org and described in
an article by reporter Ken Chang in the May 23 New York Times discusses
interpretations of data on asteroids from NASA's NEOWISE mission. The
paper was posted before undergoing the essential scientific peer-review
process to catch and remove significant errors.

Examination of the paper by members of the science community studying
near-Earth objects has found several fundamental errors in Myhrvold's
approach and analysis-mistakes that an independent peer review process
is designed to catch. The errors in the paper lead to results that are
easily refuted, such as sizes for well-known asteroids that are significantly
larger or smaller than their already-verified sizes. While critique and
re-examination of published results are essential to the scientific process,
it is important that any paper undergo peer review by an independent journal
before it can be seriously considered. This completes a necessary step
to ensure science results are independently validated, reproducible, and
of value to the science community.

All of the published NEOWISE team papers providing their results have
endured the peer-review process. NASA is confident that the processes
and analyses performed by the NEOWISE team are valid and verified and
stands by its data and scientific findings.

Data from the NEOWISE mission is available on a website for the public
and scientific community to use. A guide to the NEOWISE data release,
data access instructions and supporting documentation is available at
http://wise2.ipac.caltech.edu/docs/release/neowise/. Access to the NEOWISE
data products is available via the on-line and API services of the NASA/IPAC
Infrared Science Archive.

A list of peer-reviewed papers using the NEOWISE data is available at
http://neowise.ipac.caltech.edu/publications.html


News Media Contact

DC Agle / Veronica McGregor
818-393-9011 / 818-354-9452
agle at jpl.nasa.gov
veronica.mcgregor at jpl.nasa.gov

2016-134
Received on Fri 27 May 2016 08:26:10 PM PDT