Travelers In The Night

Comet Blanpain was discovered in 1819 and was described as having a small confused nucleus. It was lost a few months after its discovery and pronounced dead. It 1956 a meteor outburst was observed by the crew of a Japanese expedition ship on its way to the Antarctic. This intense meteor shower seemed to be unrelated to any other and became known as the phantom meteor shower. More than a decade ago...

Asteroid hunters have discovered that the Earth encounters many tiny asteroids as it zips around the Sun at 67,000 miles per hour. Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Hannes Growler discovered an approximately 15 foot diameter space rock, now named 2020 JJ, about 6 hours before it came to within 4,400 miles of the Earth's surface over the Pacific Ocean.

How often do you traveled 5, 10, or more miles on a shopping trip? If instead of traveling on the Earth's surface you were to travel 6 miles straight up, to the realm of the jet airliner, you would likely need oxygen to stay conscious. At an altitude of 12 miles you would need a space suit to stay alive. Several groups have reached an altitude of 24 miles using cameras attached to unmanned weather...

It has been traditional for an asteroid to be named by its discoverer. The 1990s were the golden age for private individuals as computerized telescopes and electronic cameras became affordable and readily available. The number of catalogued asteroids increased slowly and by 1999 there were approximately 20,000 of them. During the next 15 years this number has increased nearly 50 times as the large...

Due to thoughtless outdoor night lighting on the surface and satellites in space the natural night sky is becoming a vanishing treasure. From climate change to saving our natural night sky we must join together to prevent the thoughtless use of technology from damaging our environment.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski has discovered an Earth approaching comet that comes within 18 million miles of our home planet. It orbits the Sun every 5 and a half years on a path that takes it from a point between the Earth and Mars out to near the planet Jupiter. Even though it is unlikely to become a bright naked eye comet or a threat to us, its discovery alerts us to the fac...

One of the perks of being an asteroid hunter is to discover a comet and have it carry your name. Teddy's first comet discovery is a member of a group of approximately 200 such small comets which circle the Sun with orbital periods of less than 20 years and whose paths are ruled by the largest planet in our solar system

Faster than a speeding bullet. More powerful than a locomotive. Its not Superman, its a meteoroid. Yes, a volleyball sized stoney meteoroid, which is typically traveling 15 to 60 times faster than a high powered rifle bullet, has 8 times the kinetic energy of a passenger diesel electric locomotive traveling at 100 miles per hour.

See Climate Change! Noctilucent Clouds exist at more than 50 miles above the Earth's surface or about 4 times higher than the tops of the most intense tropical thunder storms. Climate change has caused these once very rare clouds to become a common occurrence.

Recently I was observing with the NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey 60 inch on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when I discovered a 200 foot diameter asteroid, 2014 SC324. It is in an orbit around the Sun which takes it from inside our planet's path to 60% of the way to Jupiter. This is an unusual Earth approaching space rock in that it gets bright enough to be imaged with a small telescope equipped with an elec...

The International Asteroid Warning Network, or IWAN (Eye-Whan) for short has been established to link scientists who are discovering, monitoring, and physically characterizing potentially dangerous asteroids. In the future the coordinated efforts of IWAN members will indicate where to search for meteorites giving you a chance to hold a 3 to 5 billion year old traveler in the night.

Recently I discovered a small asteroid with the NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon. This space rock is about 200 feet in diameter and will never get closer than 1/4 of the distance to the Moon. A friend asked what it would be like to witness the impact of such an object.

From 1663 to 2011, seven comets had close encounters with Jupiter and two had close encounters with Saturn. In May of 1936, Comet P/2020 F1 Leonard had a close encounter with Saturn. In the distant past, Comet Leonard was captured by Jupiter and is now part of the giant planet's family of comets.

Asteroid 2008 TC3 is the only asteroid which was observed to be hurtling between planets, flying through our atmosphere, and pieces of it found to be lying on the Earth's Surface. NASA funded, Catalina Sky Survey team member, Richard Kowalski discovered it 20 hours before it hit. Airline pilots spotted it flying through the sky. Eventually, searchers were rewarded with pieces of it on the sands of...

Images of the quiet Sun during a solar minimum make it look like a relatively static peaceful place. Occasionally during solar minimum, at the Cosmic Campground, in New Mexico, on a clear moonless night, you can easily see to walk around without a flashlight and with a DSLR camera photograph the sky which to the camera appears to be covered with orange and green cirrus clouds through which you can...

India's Mars Orbiter Mission or MOM has made the 10 month journey from Earth to Mars. India joins the United States, Russia, and the European Space Agency in the exploration of the red planet by placing its Mangalyann [Mangle Yarn] spacecraft into orbit around Mars.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was observing in the constellation of Ursae Major with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when he spotted a rare fast moving point of light far north of the area in the sky which contains the planets and most of the asteroids.

Recently a semi-trailer trailer truck sized asteroid passed only 20,800 miles above the Earth's surface. It reached its closest distance to us about 6 days after it was discovered by team member, Richard Kowalski, of the NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey. Fortunately it did not enter our atmosphere.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammates Kacper Wierzchos and Teddy Pruyne were asteroid hunting in the constellation of Virgo with our 60 inch telescope when they spotted a second natural Moon. Scientists predict there are hundreds smaller than softball sized and perhaps several dozen football to beachball sized, natural Earth mini moons, which have so far evaded detection. Stay tuned.

Imagine a world where people are never able to see the Milky Way or a meteor streaking like a falling star in the night sky. For most of the people living in the Earth's cities this has already happened. In the United States most people live in artificial light domes and in 10 years there will only a few places left at which to experience the natural wonders of the night sky.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Virgo when he spotted a fuzzy ball with a tail moving through the night sky. The small possibility that such frozen gas ball could come near Earth at a speed of more than 30 miles per second producing a bright naked eye comet gives us a sense of wonder as to what else could literally pop up out of nowhere .

Recently, Dr. Stephanie C. Werner of the University of Oslo in Norway and her colleagues have discovered the source of some of the Martian meteorites found on Earth. It is the 34 mile diameter Mojave Crater on Mars. The debris ejected from this impact event about 5 million years ago, orbited the Sun until one of the pieces fell to Earth and was discovered by humans in Antarctica.

Elizabeth William graduated from MIT in 1903 as one of the top students in physics and mathematics. As the head "human computer" at Lowell Observatory She used the motions of Uranus and Neptune to predict the location of Planet X. Elizabeth Williams died penniless at the age of 102 years. In 2020 a graduate student at Lowell Observatory, Catherine A. Clark, is finally giving Elizabeth Williams som...

The NASA funded, University of Arizona, Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, AZ was used to discover two close approaching space rocks on the same night. Rest assured that the asteroid hunting community will keep track of these two new space rocks to make sure that neither of them become on a collision course with planet Earth as they pass other objects in space.