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

[Ron Baalke]

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