Travelers In The Night18 Kesä 2024

289E-305-Murky

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 this video, 2016 VA missed the Earth by about 59,000 miles while traveling at a speed of 13 miles per second relative to us. In 2024 it will once again come near to both the Earth and our Moon.

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Jaksot(1000)

405E-446-Asteroid Homestead

In the future one can envision a space mining family boarding a descendent of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch Vehicle for a trip into low Earth orbit. A few hundred miles above the Earth's surface they...

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915-Raining Comets

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4 Syys 2min

404E-445-Not So Secret

A partnership of humans and computers will help to minimize the damage when asteroid hunters find a space rock with our number on it.

1 Syys 2min

914-Deep Synoptic Array

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28 Elo 2min

403E-444-Near Comets

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25 Elo 2min

913-Moon Impact

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21 Elo 2min

402E-443-Unsung Heroes

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18 Elo 2min

912-Boston Bolide

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14 Elo 2min