Travelers In The Night

The James Webb Space Telescope or JWST for short is a superb scientific instrument which is revolutionizing our understanding of the structure of the universe and is providing a tool to help us to explore the possibility of life outside of Earth. It is also a testament to what humans can accomplish by working together.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski was surprised to find a moving point of light on some his images which was more than 50 times brighter than a typical Earth approaching object he observes . He was even more amazed when it was not cataloged as a known object and he reported his observations to the Minor Planet Center. A couple of hours before Richard spotted it, scientists using the Space Surveillance Telescope in New Mexico had picked up this unknown object on some of their images but did not immediately report their observations. For the next 67 hours the new object was tracked by telescopes at 24 different observatories around the world. These observations allowed the Minor Planet Center to calculate an orbit, give it the name 2016 WM48, and classify it as a Centaur. Centaurs are named after the mythical beasts which were half human and half horse perhaps because they have characteristics of both asteroids and comets. Richard's object, 2016 WM48, is about a mile in diameter. We don't know if

The Earth Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance or Earth MOID for short is the closest an asteroid can come to our home planet on it's current orbit.

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard discovered, 2016 WJ1, a relatively large asteroid which can come close but will not hit the Earth. The extremely unlikely scenario of an impactor with our number on it would start the with the report of a fast moving point of light in the night sky. After a few days of data the Minor Planet Center would give it a name. Tracking the new asteroid, asteroid hunters would be alarmed as the chances that this object will impact the Earth starts to rise. Large telescopes would then be trained on it to obtain the pattern of colors in the light it reflects and use this information to determine its size, mass, and chemical composition. Hopefully this fictional impact would be far enough in the future so that humans could mount a space mission to intercept it and deflect it so that it would miss Earth. Even when a collision with this mythical object is certain, scientists would not be able to accurately predict its point of impact on the surface without additional tr

When the Earth enters a stream of high speed protons and other charged particles in the solar wind or our home planet is impacted by a solar coronal mass ejection the Earth’s strong magnetic field acts a a shield. Mars on the other hand lacks an Earth-like magnetic field and thus has little protection from solar storms.

Water for Martian Colonists Martian colonists will need to create mini environments with air to breathe and water to drink. Energy will be required to keep warm, power the settlement, and enable vehicles to move around the planet.

During a recent 60 day period of time 23 space rocks came closer to Earth than our Moon

Dangerous Asteroids Are Still Out There Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard discovered a rapidly moving point of light in the night sky. Subsequent observations made by telescopes in Arizona, Romania, Illinois, the Czech Republic, Australia, and France revealed it to be a close approaching Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. The Minor Planet Center named it 2016 WJ1. This asteroid is about 200 yards in diameter, orbits the Sun once every 567 days, and currently can come to within about 26,000 miles of the Earth's surface. 2016 WJ1's orbit eventually will bring it near Mars, Earth, our Moon, and Venus. Any of these encounters have the potential to change it's path around the Sun.

It is hard to obtain time on the 8m Gemini South Observatory telescope on Cerro Pachon in Chile and the Large Binocular Telescope with its twin 8m mirrors on Mt. Graham, Arizona since they are among the largest telescopes in the world. My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Kacper Wierzchos wrote a scientifically competitive proposal to obtain the time to track the potentially hazardous asteroid 2016 PR38 on both of these telescopes when it was near its furthest point from our Sun and thus much too faint for the telescopes asteroid hunters routinely use

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Carson Fuls discovered 2015 TC25 as a rapidly moving point of light in the night sky. Followup observations using data from four different telescopes has enabled a team of astronomers led by Dr. Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory to determine that this small asteroid reflects four times more of the sunlight than do most other Earth approaching asteroids. Dr. Reddy points out that large asteroids are covered by a blanket of dust but that "Small asteroids might be bald and dust free." This team of researchers found the surface of Carson's discovery to be similar to a small meteorite which fell to Earth in France in 1836.

During a recent 60 day period asteroid hunters observed 23 asteroids which came closer to us than our Moon. Six of them passed closer to the Earth’s surface than 22,236 miles which is the distance to our communication satellites.

Should martian microbes be sacrificed to human space exploration?It is unlikely that any living organism could survive being blasted from the surface of a planet, travel through interstellar space on a meteoroid, survive a fiery entry through another planet's atmosphere, and be viable when it reaches the surface. However, humans are breaching this interplanetary barrier. We have robots operating and are planning to land colonists on the red planet. This situation has prompted doctoral student Daniel Helman of Prescott College to ask the question "If Martian microbial life is discovered, is it ethical for humans to colonize Mars even if that means spoiling the environment of the microbes?" .

After months of training Tracie came full circle during her first solo 3 night observing run on the 60 inch telescope as she hosted groups of visitors as the observer instead of the tour guide.

Atira, named for the Pawnee goddess of Earth and the Morning and Evening Star orbits the Sun inside of our path.  Atira, the first of this type of asteroid, was discovered by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research Program using telescopes in New Mexico. Atira is a stony object more than a mile in diameter, spins on it's axis of rotation once every three hours, has an irregular shape, and orbits the Sun once every 233 days. This asteroid was named Atira who is a goddess of the Native American Pawnee tribe. She is the wife of the creator god, Tirawa [Tire a wa]. She is the goddess of Earth and the Morning and Evening star.

Since larger space rocks are rare, it was surprising when my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Hannes Groller found a half mile diameter asteroid traveling through the constellation of Auriga.Fortunately on it’s current path 2024 JW1 can’t come closer than 53 lunar distances from us. Asteroid hunters will continue to track 2024 JW1 to make sure that it does not become a threat as it passes near Earth, Mars , and Jupiter.

Egg rock's chemical composition and visual appearance is so different from other native Mars rocks that scientists have concluded that it is a meteorite which came from the molten core of an ancient asteroid. 

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Kacper Wierzchos was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Draco with the Steward Observatory Bok 90 inch telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona when he discovered a faint fuzzy object moving through the night sky.Given the global warming which is happening in 2024 one has to wonder about the state of humanity and our home planet when comet C/2024 G1 (Wierzchos) returns to the inner solar system in 3331 CE.

It was murky cloudy night on Mt. Lemmon where I was trying to find Earth approaching objects with the Catalina Sky Survey 60 inch telescope. At about 1AM another hole in the clouds opened and I could see stars on the all sky video camera. On this fourth attempt, one set of images showed a bright rapidly moving object. Followup observations by my teammate Greg Leonard using the Catalina Sky Survey 40 inch telescope next door and two different observers in Japan provided the data which allowed the Minor Planet Center to calculate an orbit, estimate a size, predict its path in the sky, and give it the name 2016 VA. Twenty hours after I discovered it, Dr. Gianluca Masi using the Virtual Telescope Project facility 56 miles south of Rome, Italy, repeatedly imaged 2016 VA as it made an 11 minute passage through the Earth's shadow. He used these images to make a remarkable video of this tiny asteroid as it passed through the Earth's umbra. It was the fastest asteroid that he had ever tracked. Fortunately a bit after

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Jacqueline Fazekas was asteroid hunting with our small but mighty Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona when she spotted and then reported a bright moving point of light in the night sky to the Minor Planet Center.Given the rate of human caused climate change one has to wonder about the state of our planet in January of 2163 when 2024 ER is predicted to pass safely some 66 lunar distances from humanity.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Rose Matheny had no way of knowing that the fast moving point of light that she had just discovered would create such a stir. Rose sent in her discovery and followup observations to the Minor Planet Center where astronomers calculated that her discovery would make a very close approach to Earth about two days later and gave it the name 2016 RB1. More than two dozen observatories around the world tracked 2016 RB1 as it came towards us.