Travelers In The Night

Recently, my newest Catalina Sky Survey Teammate, Hannes Groeller, had an excellent training night, working with Greg Leonard, on our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona posting 14 new objects on the Near Earth Object Confirmation Page. One of his discoveries could be worth 26 billion dollars on the iron scrap metal market in China.

On July 1, 1770 Comet Lexell passed about 6 times the moon's distance from planet Earth, the closest a comet has ever come to humanity. After that it completely disappeared . After more than 200 years of searching, researchers have identified what may be a piece of long lost Comet Lexell.

A 2000 foot diameter space rock has stories to tell about violent events long ago. Asteroid hunters are eager to track this huge collision fragment and look for members of it's family as it passes near Earth in 2026.

A 100 foot diameter asteroid is spotted on one of it's regular trips between the orbits of Venus and Earth. It's ultimate fate is to collide with one of these planets producing a spectacular light show.

The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency is conducting a six year flight from Earth to a potentially hazardous asteroid, Ryugu, and return a sample of it to Earth for study. Ryugu is likely to have under gone little change since the formation of the solar system and samples of it will provide unique clues about the composition of the small bodies which brought water and the chemicals needed for life to the young Earth.

Two exciting new scientific discoveries have ignited our curiosity and are guiding our search for evidence of past and/or present life on Mars.

A small space rock with a diameter less than the height of an NBA basketball player had just crossed the orbit of our Moon on a collision course with Earth when it was spotted streaking through the constellation of Scorpius by my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski. 8 hours and 37 minutes after Richard's discovery observations, the space rock now known as 2018 LA was seen by security cameras to explode over Botswana in southern Africa just as NASA's scout system predicted.

The life of an asteroid hunter on Mars will be interesting and exciting. The double planet, our Earth and Moon, in the Martian night sky will be an unforgettable sight and well worth the trip.

My birthday present from outer space was the opportunity to use the Catalina Sky Survey's 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Az to discover a tiny sofa couch sized asteroid as it was flying through the constellation of Bootes. Once every 6 months or so, lucky observers will witness a sofa sized space rock similar to 2018 KW1 entering the Earth's atmosphere creating a spectacular light show, and raining pieces to Earth for meteorite hunters to discover.

A strange asteroid plays hide and seek with frustrated astronomers.

Looking out into space takes you back in time. To experience time travel go to a natural night sky location like the Cosmic Campground International Dark Sky Sanctuary or another location on the darksky.org website.

Asteroid hunters have discovered more than 90% of the Earth approaching asteroids whose impact could cause global climate change. It was thus unusual when the Catalina Sky Survey found two, new, such giant space rocks in less than a week.

After being lost for ten years, the asteroid 2010 WC9 was re-discovered about a week before it came very close to Earth.

The recent discovery of an asteroid, whose orbit lies completely within that of the Earth, reminds asteroid hunters to continue to search near the Sun so that a large dangerous object does not sneak up undetected on the residents of planet Earth.

An asteroid is exiled to the outer regions of the solar system during Jupiter's rampaging tack away from the Sun long ago. During that process enough material was left in Jupiter's wake to form Venus, Earth, Mars, and the asteroid belt as we know them today.

Modern technology provides us with stunning views of objects in the Universe in wavelengths invisible to our eyes, however, nothing is as moving and thought provoking as looking into deep space with your very own eyes.

Brian Africano's first Potentially Hazardous Asteroid discovery can come near to the Earth and Mars.

To find planets close to home NASA has launched TESS the Transiting Exoplanet Satellite which will monitor more than 200,000 nearby, stars over the entire sky to detect the tiny dips in light caused when a planet passes in front of it's star. The TESS era will be a most exciting time as humans discover and are able determine the properties of relatively nearby habitatable worlds and dream about what might be living in our neighborhood of the Milky Way.

In the early evening of January 17, 2018 six hundred and seventy four observers in 11 States and Canada reported a fireball meteor streaking across the sky to the American Meteor Society. To find freshly fallen meteorites visit the American Meteor Society's website but do not hunt for meteorites on private land without permission.

On June 30, 1908 a celestial object exploded 28,000 feet above the Tunguska river drainage area in Siberia, Russia releasing the energy of 185 Hiroshima sized atomic bombs. Recently a similar sized space rock made a sudden appearance before it passed very close to our Earth and Moon.