Travelers In The Night

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.

In an astonishing rebirth, the Mayall 4-m telescope has jumped to the forefront of astronomy once again because it is sturdy and precise enough to carry the massive Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument which routinely obtains the spectra of 5,000 galaxies simultaneously.

More than 400 years ago Galileo Galilei expanded human vision using a telescope to view the cosmos. Since then humans have extended their senses to view the Universe in x-rays, ultraviolet, infrared, radio, and other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum not accessible to our senses. In a pioneering effort, Ekaterina Smirnova has employed the spectroscopy, magnetometry, and molecular data collected by the Rosetta spacecraft to create watercolor paintings, sculptures, a musical collaboration, and an augmented reality project to create new art forms. She has also taken Rosetta data obtained from it's close up observations of comet 67P to create interactive art which uses a smart phone app to experience scientific results in a completely new way.

The Cosmic Campground International Dark Sky Sanctuary and the Aldo Leopold Gila Wilderness in New Mexico are gateways to nature where man is only a visitor.These New Mexico neighbors give us a sense of wonder, glimpses of history, new knowledge to mitigate the effects of man’s excesses, and many other opportunities we are yet to fully appreciate.

A pair of comets visiting our neighborhood are discovered in a matter of 4 days. One of the perks of being an asteroid hunter is having a comet named for you. To do this you must be the first to discover it as a moving point of light in the night sky and at the same time recognize that it is a comet by observing the coma and tail which are names for the clouds of gas and dust that surrounds it. After being on the lookout for a comet for sometime, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Rose Matheny discovered two of them within a 4 day period of time. Both of them C/2016 T1 (Matheny) and C/2016 T2 (Matheny) are likely to be first time visitors to the inner solar system. These two comets have quite different paths which are both inclined at large angles to the paths of the planets about the Sun. In addition, both of them are traveling at very close to the escape velocity from our solar system and have uncertain orbital periods around the Sun which are likely to be thousands of times the age of the Universe.

Life on Earth appears to have formed in our oceans. Scientists are thus on the hunt for other worlds which have oceans of liquid water and thus potentially could be the home of fellow living creatures.

Using a small telescope or a set of binoculars you can see Europa for yourself as a small moving point of light circling the giant planet Jupiter. More than 400 years after Galileo Galilei discovered this seemingly small dead world the Hubble Space Telescope spotted geysers erupting from its south polar regions. Recently, over a 15 month period, the Hubble was able to observe 10 transits of Europa across the face of Jupiter. On three such occasions plumes were seen to be erupting from this small moon.

It is essential that asteroid hunters keep track of potentially dangerous asteroids to make sure that their orbits haven’t changed as they encounter other objects in space to make them a threat to our home planet.

The Rosetta Spacecraft left planet Earth in 2004. During its twelve year lifetime this robotic emissary traveled 5 billion miles on 6 trips around the Sun, flew by Earth three times, visited Mars, and cruised by two asteroids. Rosetta needed to take such a long path to use the gravity of Earth and Mars to accelerate it to a speed which would allow it to rendezvous with a comet. Upon arrival, Rosetta successfully spent two years studying the comet at close range and sent a probe to it's surface. It's life ended when its human masters put it on a collision course with Comet 67P's nucleus.

On the 3rd of March 2024 while asteroid hunting with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon , Arizona my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Kacper Wierzchos discovered a comet moving through the constellation of Draco.Since we don’t know Kacper’s comet’s chemical composition it is impossible to accurately predict how. bright it will be as it crosses the  Earth’s orbit December 12, 2025, rounds the sun January 20, 2026, and crosses our orbit again February 27, 2026.

Inappropriate night time outside lighting causes accidents and does not deter crime. However, it blinds you from the beauty of the Universe which surrounds you.