Travelers In The Night

We are lucky to be alive in an age when anyone with an internet connection can participate in the exploration of Mars. Your unique brain-eye combination may very well enable you to notice a previously unknown meteorite on the surface of Mars. Give it a try.

Recently, three asteroids were discovered which have very slight probabilities of impact with planet Earth between 2065 and 2117. My team, the Catalina Sky Survey found two of them and the Pan-STARRS group in Hawaii found the other one. These three asteroids are some of the most recent objects to be listed on the NASA Sentry Risk Table. So far so good. Maybe against the most incredible odds a small asteroid has our number on it. Maybe we will find it tonight.

On 28 February 2021 at 9:54PM a large slow moving fireball meteor was observed over England, Northern Ireland, Wales, and Scotland. The Wichcombe meteorite which this meteor produced is particularly valuable since it was found less than 12 hours after it fell leaving its interior untouched by contamination from its terrestrial surroundings.

In the early days of space exploration when a flight component failed the mission was over. In recent history, there have been a few times when astronauts have repaired satellites and a number of instances of Earth bound engineers reprogramming malfunctioning spacecraft so that they could continue their scientific work. Since the cost of developing and launching spacecraft far exceeds the cost of operating them for extended periods of time, our ability to recover from malfunctions allows scientists to make the best use of available funds.

The situation that asteroid hunters both train for and dread is the discovery of a large space rock on a collision course with planet Earth. Recently we got a chance to practice on a small harmless space rock named 2020 XK1 that eventually zipped past us. About once a month a small space rock like 2020 XK1 enters the Earth's atmosphere, creates a super fireball meteor, bursts into a cloud of fragments at 135,000 feet, and rains fragments of itself onto the ground for meteorite hunters to discover.

Slightly more than a day apart, my NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey teammates Richard Kowalski and Carson Fuls found two small asteroids. Both of them can travel to much closer than the distance to our Moon from planet Earth. It is possible that either of these tiny asteroids could enter the Earth's atmosphere in the distant future and release the energy of a small nuclear weapon. We might expect such an event every 27 years or so. There are likely to be several million space rocks of this size which come close to planet Earth. We now know more about two of them.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski is the first person in our group and perhaps the first person in the world to discover a potentially hazardous asteroid while sitting on his living room couch.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski has an instinct for discovering interesting objects. Recently he spotted a fuzzy looking moving faint light in the night sky. It was then observed by telescopes in Italy, New Mexico, and Texas and given the name C/2015 D5 (Kowalski). When Kowalski first spotted this comet it was traveling about 12 miles per second away from the Sun and was about 344 million miles from planet Earth. Comet C/2015 D5 (Kowalski) is likely to continue its cold lonely journey between stars till the end of time.

My Catalina Survey Teammate Greg Leonard was asteroid hunting with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when he spotted a fuzzy object with a short tail moving through the constellation Canes Venatici. That Greg spotted his comet discovery some 472 million miles from the Sun leads us to believe that it may brighten to the point that C2021 A1 (Leonard) will be visible in binoculars and perhaps even to the naked eye.

More than 50 years of searching for signals from other civilizations in the Universe has produced a deafening silence. There is no evidence that aliens have visited the Earth or exist anywhere. There are many hints that life might exist in other places but there is no conclusive proof that it does. My money is on the concept that there are many planets which host living organisms. Recent discoveries indicate that there may be as many as 40 billion habitable planets in the Milky way alone. On some of them civilizations like are ours are likely to be emerging. The physics of the Universe requires large allocations of energy and resources to become spacefaring. Humans have so far dabbled in a few baby steps beyond our planet and made some attempts to listen for other beings. What else is out there remains to be discovered.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Hercules when he spotted a fast moving point of light streaking through the night sky 159 million miles from Earth. David's discovery is only one of three Earth approaching asteroids discovered in 2020 which is larger than 1 km in diameter. NASA is especially interested in these very large asteroids since the impact of a 1 km or greater diameter asteroid is likely to produce global climate change.

Objects in the Universe that brighten rapidly grab our attention. One of the most spectacular examples is Kepler's supernova. In 1604 this star was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye in the daytime for over three weeks. Another occurred in 1843 when a comet became almost as bright as the limb of the Sun. Over the centuries there have been many suddenly appearing objects in both the day and night sky. Possibly as the result of this history, most of the surveys which look for time variable objects in the sky are set to trigger on increases in brightness. On the other hand perhaps solar systems in formation dim instead of brighten. Stay tuned.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Canes Venatici with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, AZ when he found our teams loneliest asteroid of 2020. The possibility of a tough lonely unknown asteroid with our number on it keeps asteroid hunters scanning the sky.

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammates Carson Fuls and Jess Johnson discovered an asteroid which comes close enough and is large enough be be classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. It was subsequently observed by telescopes in New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Illinois and given the name 2015 DH155. Fortunately, its orbit never brings it closer than about 16 times the Moon's distance from planet Earth.

In 2020 my team the Catalina Sky Survey discovered 171 asteroids which can occasionally come closer to us than our Moon. In fact 21 of them, averaging 25 feet in diameter can come close enough to our home planet to pass through the cloud of communications satellites which surround Earth.

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammates Carson Fuls and Jess Johnson discovered a rapidly moving point of light in the sky. It was subsequently observed by telescopes in Italy, Arizona, New Zealand, and Australia. Twenty six hours before humans spotted it, this 10 foot diameter space rock came within two and a half Earth diameters of our planets surface and was traveling at 8 miles per second. At that point it was bright enough to be seen in a small telescope had anyone been looking. In the future its orbit allows it to come to about 2,000 miles of the Earth's surface.

In 2020, my team the Catalina Sky Survey discovered 14 extremely tough asteroids which regularly travel closer to the Sun than the planet Mercury. They are likely to contain at least as much iron, nickel, platinum, gold, and other valuable metals as a stony meteorite and may be worth billions of dollars on the used metal markets. In the future they may become an important source of raw materials for future asteroid mining space colonists

The appearance of a naked eye comet is one of natures most impressive displays. Humans have regarded these suddenly appearing objects as everything from a sign of an upcoming disaster, to the bringers of water and organic materials to Earth. Not all comets are discovered with large telescopes and sophisticated electronic cameras. They sometimes sneak up on our planet by brightening suddenly. David Levy discovered 8 comets visually with small backyard telescopes. Perhaps, with persistence you too could discover a comet.

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne was observing in the constellation of Pisces with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, AZ when he discovered a small space rock on a path which takes it near the moon on its 2.3 year long orbit about the Sun. On this trip Teddy's small space rock missed the Moon. Other tiny asteroids are not so lucky. Imagine the excitement which will occur when scientists are able invite the people to go outside to witness the impact of a small boulder on the Moon.

Carl Sagan said that "The Universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space". It is hard to look into the sky on a clear dark night and not share this feeling.