Tag Archives: Asteroids

In the Sky This Week – May 22, 2018

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This entry is part 44 of 44 in the series In the Sky This Week

Jupiter has almost left the morning sky; Mars and Saturn are slowly making their way southward. I was a bit surprised to catch a flyover of the International Space Station when I copied this image from Stellarium! Jupiter is in the southeastern sky after sunset, and is a great observing target. The Moon The Moon is at first quarter on the 22nd, and then a waxing gibbous until full on the 29th. This whole week will be great for observing the moon through telescopes. The Moon is in the southwestern sky after sunset for the next few days. The Sun We have a spot! Active Region (AR) 2710 is rotating into view on the Sun – it’s so small it may be difficult to see through telescopes for a few days. AR2710 has a lot of coronal loop activity above it (left side of video), and coronal holes remain at both poles. Surprisingly, there are no Earthward facing coronal holes along … Continue reading →

NASA Space Place: What Is the Asteroid Belt?

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What Is the Asteroid Belt? By Linda Hermans-Killiam There are millions of pieces of rocky material left over from the formation of our solar system. These rocky chunks are called asteroids, and they can be found orbiting our Sun.  Most asteroids are found between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. They orbit the Sun in a doughnut-shaped region of space called the asteroid belt. Asteroids come in many different sizes—from tiny rocks to giant boulders. Some can even be hundreds of miles across! Asteroids are mostly rocky, but some also have metals inside, such as iron and nickel. Almost all asteroids have irregular shapes. However, very large asteroids can have a rounder shape. The asteroid belt is about as wide as the distance between Earth and the Sun. It’s a big space, so the objects in the asteroid belt aren’t very close together. That means there is plenty of room for spacecraft to safely pass through the belt. In fact, … Continue reading →

A Visit to Meteor Crater National Landmark

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Asteroids and meteorites are right on the top of my list of interests when it comes to astronomy. Visiting Meteor Crater National Landmark in Arizona has been a “bucket-list” item for my wife and I for a LONG time. We visited the crater on Easter Sunday 2018, and it was simply spectacular! My first sight of the crater through a window in the museum took my breath away. The museum at the visitor’s center was excellent – it had several displays showing different features of the crater and details of its history. I was pleased to see displays describing the 1908 Tunguska and the recent 2013 Chelyabinsk impact events. The Holsinger meteorite is the largest metal fragment found from the impact; I have an image of the Holsinger meteorite, in my asteroid lecture – now I get to replace it with this: If you should ever get a chance to visit the crater, be sure to take the 1-mile guided tour along the crater rim – it … Continue reading →

New Orbit Visualizations for the JPL Small-Body Database Browser

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I frequently refer to the JPL Small-Body Database Browser for information on asteroids and comets. The website has brand new visualization software that beautifully displays the orbits of asteroids and comets, and allows you to zoom and rotate-around easily using the mouse – the same way as in NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System. So what’s the first thing I did when I found out about this? I searched for my wife’s asteroid: 117852 Constance: You can set the date from 1600-2199, select which major solar system bodies you’d like to see, take screen-shots, and view a time-lapse of the body orbiting the Sun. About the only thing the new tool does not have (and I wish it did) is the ability to capture a short animated-GIF when you play-forward a time-lapse. “The primary developer, Kevin Gill, deserves the major credit for this new tool.” – Dr. Alan B. Chamberlin/JPL Kevin: Good Job! I had to stop myself from playing with the new tool several times as … Continue reading →

Asteroid Day 2017

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It’s June, Asteroid Day approaches! Asteroid Day is a global coalition of scientists, astronauts, physicists, artists, musicians and concerned citizens that have come together to focus the world’s attention on the nature of asteroids, and the solutions that could protect all life on Earth from future asteroid impacts, and inspire the next generation. Since the summer of 2015, worldwide Asteroid Day events have been held on June 30th, the date of the historic Tunguska Impact Event of 1908. The founders of Asteroid Day drafted the 100X Declaration. In short: Over the last decade and a half, we’ve discovered a LOT of near-Earth asteroids, and continue to do so. Some of these asteroids can potentially impact the Earth. Some of these asteroids are large enough that an impact would be “a bad thing.” We need to accelerate the discovery and tracking of Near-Earth Asteroids to 100,000 per year within the next ten years. We need to get government, private and philanthropic organizations … Continue reading →

Newly Named Asteroids: Apr. 13, 2017, Part 1

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This entry is part of 4 in the series New Named Asteroids

The April 2017 IAU Minor Planet Center circular was filled with over 190 newly named asteroids – more than I’ve ever seen before in a MPC circular! And that’s pretty much all that was in the circular! The May 2017 circular was devoid of newly named asteroids. Since there are so many names in the April circular, I’m splitting it up into several posts. In this portion, some notable names include: science fiction author Philip K. Dick, poet and author Maya Angelou, activist Lilly Ledbetter, and the Aztec god Huitzilopochtli. Several astronomers, scientists and employees at the Lowell Observatory got asteroids named after them. Some notable locations that got named asteroids include: the Benedictine Abbey in Weltenburg, Ojmjakon – the coldest city on earth, and the French city of Angers. (9004) Peekaydee = 1982 UZ2 Discovered 1982 Oct. 22 by G. Aldering at Kitt Peak. Philip Kindred Dick (1928–1982) was an American science fiction author. His short stories and novels explored philosophical, sociological and political themes, often questioning what … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Rocket Science

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This entry is part of 158 in the series Across the Universe

This column first ran in The Tablet in April 2012 “This isn’t rocket science…” It’s a common reproach, heard when we make a simple task too complex. Of course, making a rocket work is not science; it’s engineering. The difference between the two is like the difference between theology and liturgy. Both are important, and each informs the other, but it’s dangerous (in both directions) to substitute the one for the other. Another flaw in the cliché is that it assumes launching a rocket is the height of complexity. In fact, it’s a well-understood piece of engineering. Today’s rockets are marvelous pieces of machinery, and getting it right can indeed be harder than it looks (see the recent failure of North Korea’s attempt). But the basic principles are nothing new. The rockets that lift supplies to the International Space Station today are Soviet designs dating from the cold war, more than half a century old. The issue, as the North Koreans … Continue reading →

Newly Named Asteroids: Mar. 12, 2017

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This entry is part of 4 in the series New Named Asteroids

The March 2017 IAU Minor Planet Center circular returned to its regular format, containing: errata, new observatory codes, deleted observations, new identifications, thousands of observation records, and several new names for minor planets. Numerous finalists from the US who participated in the 2016 Broadcom MASTERS math and science competition for middle school students were given named asteroids, as well as Noam Chomsky, the city of Mansfield in Germany, the Mekong and Thames rivers, the Chimborazo volcano, Tai Chi instructor Tam Yiu, and several others. (624) Hektor I = Skamandrios Discovered 2006 July 21 by F. Marchis et al.at Mauna Kea. Skamandrios was the son of Andromache and Hektor, who was a Trojan prince and the greatest fighter for Troy in the Trojan War. (7202) Kigoshi = 1995 DX1 Discovered 1995 Feb. 19 at Ojima. Kunihiko Kigoshi (1919–2014) was a cosmo-geochemist and emeritus professor at Gakushuin University. One of his pioneering works was the development of the radiocarbon dating method, both … Continue reading →

New Named Asteroids – Feb. 12, 2017

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This entry is part of 4 in the series New Named Asteroids

The day before the 4th anniversary of the Chelyabinsk meteor strike, the IAU Minor Planet Center released a new circular: this one, however, contains only the citations for newly names minor planets – it is completely devoid of the usual list of asteroid and comet observations. Here are the new named minor planets for Feb. 12, 2017: (6117) Brevardastro = 1985 CZ1 Discovered 1985 Feb. 12 by H. Debehogne at the European Southern Observatory. Brevard is a county on the east coast of Florida and is known as the “space coast”. Brevard county is the home of the Kennedy Space Center, Cape Canaveral, where many of the early manned space flights originated. The Brevard Astronomical Society is a very active amateur astronomy community in Brevard county. (6118) Mayubosh = 1986 QX3 Discovered 1986 Aug. 31 by H. Debehogne at the European Southern Observatory. There is a Japanese poem whose subject is Mt. Bizan in the Manyosyu, an anthology of the Nara Era. … Continue reading →

New Named Asteroids – Jan. 12, 2017

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This entry is part of 4 in the series New Named Asteroids

Each month (or thereabouts), the IAU Minor Planet Center publishes a PDF document containing an extensive list of asteroid and comet observations. At the bottom of this document is a list of newly named asteroids. Asteroids have been named after: scientists (Br. Guy Consolmagno, Bill Nye, Neil deGrasse Tyson) and fictional characters (Sauron, Achilles), cities (Barcelona, Chicago), and entertainers (Freddie Mercury, Monty Python, Wil Wheaton), science and engineering fair winning students, and space mission specialists (a boatload of OSIRIS-REx mission team members got asteroids named after them). The Warren Astronomical Society and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific both have asteroids named after them. While doing research for my lecture on asteroids, I got to know an astronomer who worked at the Catalina Sky Survey; through him, I was able to get an asteroid named after my wife: 117852 Constance (2005 JG151). Each citation is allowed a short description of the recipient; sometimes it can be difficult to extol the virtues of … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: The New Paganism

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This entry is part 1 of 158 in the series Across the Universe

The following column was published in The Tablet in November 2009 You will know the end-times by their signs, we’re told in the Gospel readings at this time of year. Given the nature of those signs, mostly dramatic events in the sky, you can imagine the kinds of questions that are typically addressed to those of us who study meteorite falls. The apocalyptic visions in the Gospels bear a certain resemblance to our understanding of the destruction that an asteroid impact would produce. Is it mere coincidence? Do I have any advice for the fearful? Yes: read the Gospel passages in their context as lessons on how to live, not how we’ll die. Meanwhile, quit smoking and wear your seat belt. That said, what does science tell us about the end of the world? We know that our solar system has a finite lifetime. Stars like our Sun can only shine for about ten billion years before they run out of … Continue reading →

Across the Universe: Featureless Features

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This entry is part of 158 in the series Across the Universe

At the end of September 2016, Rosetta finally ended its mission by crashing into its comet. This column, about an earlier aspect of the Rosetta mission, first appeared in The Tablet in October 2010   Back in July [2010], ESA’s Rosetta spacecraft, en route to a comet rendezvous in 2014, flew past asteroid Lutetia, a 100 km pile of rock orbiting between Mars and Jupiter. The result of that encounter was a hot topic of both the European Planetary Science Conference in Rome in September and a meeting of American planetary astronomers in Pasadena in October [2010]. Studying asteroids has always been challenging. Even in the largest telescopes they’re mere dots of light, too small to show any shapes, much less surface details. We can only infer their nature from the most subtle of hints: how their brightness varies as they spin, how much infrared light they radiate, their visible and infrared colours. Minerals that contain iron oxide or water reveal themselves by … Continue reading →