Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Digest: Eps.291 & 291 : Rose Rules & Disintegrating Comet

Organization: Travelers in The Night

Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus

Description: Today’s 2 topics:

• Rose Matheny of the Catalina Sky Survey rules. On a 3-night observing run at Mt. Lemmon, she found 82 new asteroids! 29 proved to be Earth-approaching, 32 are other asteroids, and the rest need more observations. 2 of them are PHAs and bear watching.
• A comet is producing a 3,000 mile long trail of debris as it slowly comes apart. The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged that disintegrating comet as it cruises the solar system 67 million miles from us.

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Bio: Dr. Al Grauer is currently an observing member of the Catalina Sky Survey Team at the University of Arizona.  This group has discovered nearly half of the Earth approaching objects known to exist. He received a PhD in Physics in 1971 and has been an observational Astronomer for 43 years. He retired as a University Professor after 39 years of interacting with students. He has conducted research projects using telescopes in Arizona, Chile, Australia, Hawaii, Louisiana, and Georgia with funding from NSF and NASA.

He is noted as Co-discoverer of comet P/2010 TO20 Linear-Grauer, Discoverer of comet C/2009 U5 Grauer and has asteroid 18871 Grauer named for him.

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Transcript:
291 – Rose Rules
Anyone who thinks women can’t do computers and science needs to meet my Catalina Sky Survey teammateRose Matheny. On a recent 3 night observing run at the 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Rose took over the world of asteroid hunting when she posted 82 new potentially Earth approaching objects on the Minor Planet Center’s NEO Confirmation Page. For the next several days telescopes around the world obtained additional data on Rose’s discoveries. When the dust settled 29 of Rose’s discoveries were proved to be Earth approaching objects, 32 are other asteroids which don’t come near enough our home planet to be interesting, and the rest need more data to figure out what they are.

Interestingly four of Rose’s discoveries can pass less than half of the Moon’s distance from us. In fact two days after she discovered it one of them passed at about the distance of the communication satellites from our south pole. Fortunately they are all less than 60 feet in diameter and pose to threat to the residents of our planet.

Two more of Rose’s 29 discoveries are classified as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids. They are no threat to humanity in the foreseeable future, however, they are large enough and come near enough that asteroid hunters will continue to keep careful watch on them.

The 32 other asteroids that Rose discovered in her three night effort all have interesting orbits and may be the objects of further scientific research.

Perhaps one day humans will visit one of Roses’s asteroid discoveries to use the water and metals they contain to sustain space colonies.

292 – Disintegrating Comets
Comets are made up of organic materials and ices of various substance which are left over from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago. When the gravity of a nearby star or other object changes one of these dirty snowball’s orbit, its path can bring it into the inner solar system and thus near enough for the Sun to affect it and for us to study what is going on.

The nucleus of a typical comet is only a few miles in diameter and is made up of chunks of frozen materials and dust. In ancient times the collision of comets with Earth are likely to have brought water and organic materials to our home planet.

It has been long suspected that comets are unstable and may leave trails of debris when they break up. Recently the Hubble Space Telescope was able to capture images of a comet which is coming apart 67 million miles from the Earth. The fascinating detailed pictures reveal the presence of twenty five pieces which are leaving the nucleus of the comet at the leisurely speed of a human on a stroll. These observed comet fragments range from 65 to 200 feet in diameter and represent about 1/20 of the mass of parent comet nucleus. It is likely that sunlight has heated the comet producing rocket like jets of material which dislodge pieces of the nucleus. In the process of ejecting these chunks this disintegrating comet is producing a trail of debris more than 3,000 miles long. If in the very distant future the Earth’s orbit were to carry it through such a dusty comet trail humans would be treated to a super-duper meteor storm. In the meantime Hubble’s sharp eye sight allows us to view this cosmic event from a safe distance.

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