Travelers In The Night

Perhaps C/2018 F3 (Johnson) is an interstellar visiting Comet and is thus a sample of a place currently beyond our reach.

On Saint Patrick's Day I discovered a comet which I share with my wife Annie Grauer.

To give you an idea of the asteroid traffic in our neighborhood, on a mostly cloudy night, through holes in the clouds, in a space of less than 2 hours, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski posted 7 new close approaching asteroid discoveries on the Minor Planet Center's Near Earth Object Confirmation Page.

The large dangerous asteroids that we don't know about are what keep asteroid hunters going to the telescope.

Tonight, even though the chances are extremely slim, an asteroid hunter could find a sizable asteroid on a collision course with planet Earth. If we have decades warning, the potential impactor's arrival time could be changed by impacting the dangerous object with a high velocity mass or if we have less time we will need to nuke it which will either blow it to bits or give it a rocket like push.

In the future one can envision a space mining family boarding a descendent of the SpaceX Falcon Heavy Launch Vehicle for a a trip into low Earth orbit. A few hundred miles above the Earth's surface they would rendezvous with their asteroid mining spacecraft which will be their home for the next five years or so.

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

Although no comet nucleus impact on the Earth has been conclusively identified, there is some evidence that suggests the 1908 Tunguska event in Russia, which knocked down trees over a 770 square mile area, could have been caused by a fragment of Comet Encke. However there is no doubt that the Earth's collision with dust and small debris left trailing from comets produces some of the meteor showers...

In 2017 observers in 50 countries at 440 different observatories made nearly 19 million observations of asteroids and comets which enable scientists to calculate where about 800,000 objects will be in the future.

During the only 3 clears hours of his first night solo as an asteroid hunter, my new Catalina Sky Survey teammate Brian Africano discovered two new Earth approaching asteroids with our Schmidt Telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona. Since one of Brian's discoveries is almost 300 feet in diameter, astronomers at 18 different observatories around the world stayed on it for more than 68 hours, after Brian...

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Carson Fuls was observing, in the constellation Lynx, with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona , when within the space of only 35 minutes, he discovered two small space rocks well before they made very close approaches to Earth.

Starman and Tesla will continue to orbit the Sun for millions of years to come as a physical testament to human ingenuity and our sense of humor.

A large asteroid approached Earth from the direction of the Sun with little advanced warning.

Most of the humans on planet Earth have never witnessed that the natural night sky is not dark; but rather it is alive with it's own lights. See for yourself by visiting a natural night sky location near you.

On December 25, 2017, while searching for Earth approaching asteroids in the constellation of Virgo, the Universe gave my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard a Christmas present in the form of a comet which now bears his name.

The lonely asteroids which travel high above and far below most of the other members of our solar system may be made out of very strong materials and could be of particular interest to asteroid miners.

Asteroid Hunter, Alex Gibbs, discovered a comet on one of it's rare visits to our neighborhood.

The largest Earth approaching space rock, found by the Catalina Sky Survey in 2017, is 3,250 feet in diameter. One like it strikes the Earth every 500,000 years or so with devastating consequences

Asteroid hunters have discovered a 4 foot 6 inch diameter, baby space rock, about 478,000 miles away in the constellation of Pisces traveling in our direction at 4.5 miles per second.

In 2017, my team, the Catalina Sky Survey discovered 17 space rocks that can come closer than the communication satellites to the surface of planet Earth. Fortunately none of them will strike the Earth anytime soon.

Some very tough asteroids regularly pass closer to the Sun than the planet Mercury and may contain valuable materials such as phosphorus, antimony, silver, gold, and copper.

An object visits our solar system from the beautiful Pleiades star cluster.

In 2017 my team the Catalina Sky Survey led the world in the discovery of Earth approaching objects by identifying 987 of them as they whizzed by us.

The mysterious Earth approaching object Phaethon does not fit neatly into our definition of either an asteroid or a comet. During it's close approach to Earth in December of 2017 the Arecibo Observatory, having just recovered from hurricane Maria, used the unique combination of it's giant 1,000 foot diameter dish and RADAR transmitting capability to ping Phaethon to obtain images with the RADAR si...

Recent scientific studies have begun to shed light on the interesting mystery of how the small number of what we now call electrophonic meteors produce simultaneous light and sound. If you are lucky you could hear a meteor's dying whispers and could even be the first person to record these sounds on your cell phone.