Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Eps. 523 & 524: One Thousand & Home Wrecker
Organization: Travelers in The Night
Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus
Description: Today’s 2 topics:
- For the first time in history, an asteroid hunting team, the Catalina Sky Survey, has discovered more than 1,000 Earth approaching asteroids in a single year.
- In 2018, my team, the Catalina Sky Survey, discovered five of the six Earth approaching objects larger than 1km or about 6/10 of a mile in diameter.
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:
523 – One Thousand
For the first time in history, an asteroid hunting team, the Catalina Sky Survey, has discovered more than 1,000 Earth approaching asteroids in a single year. The honors for discovering the one thousandth asteroid of the year goes to my teammate Carson Fuls. Observing with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona, Carson made this discovery as the unknown object was moving through the constellation of Triangulum at 4.2 miles per second about 34 times the Moon’s distance from him. This asteroid was then observed for the next 48.5 hours by telescopes in New Mexico, Arizona, Croatia, Italy and Illinois.
Scientists at the Minor Planet Center used these data to determine its 4.3 year long orbit about the Sun, estimate its diameter to be 138 feet, and give it the name 2018 XK2. On its current path this relatively small space rock never comes closer than about 29 times the Moon’s distance as it crosses the orbit of Mars but not that of the Earth. According to the Purdue University and Imperial College of London’s impact calculator, an asteroid the size of 2018 XK2 enters the Earth’s atmosphere every 540 years or so, bursts into fragments at 31,000 feet, and scatters pieces of itself on the Earth’s surface for meteorite hunters to discover. Ten miles from from impact an observer fortunate to witness the event from the ground would see a wonderful light show and hear a sound like heavy traffic.
523 – Home Wrecker
In 2018, my team, the Catalina Sky Survey, discovered five of the six Earth approaching objects larger than 1km or about 6/10 of a mile in diameter. Asteroid hunters have identified nearly 900 such large celestial visitors and suspect that fewer than 100 of this size or larger are yet to be discovered. The discovery of more than 90% of our 1km or larger neighbors is important, since the impact of one of them has the possibility to produce global climate change. The latest large asteroid discovery was made by my teammate Alex Gibbs in the constellation of Orion with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona. Fortunately, on its current path, which crosses the orbits of Earth and Mars, Alex’s 3400 foot diameter discovery, now named 2018 XV5, never comes closer than about 12 and a half Earth-Moon distances from humanity.
According to the Purdue University and Imperial College of London’s impact calculator, an object the size of 2018 XV5 strikes the Earth every 310,000 years or so creating a crater 7.5 miles in diameter and 2,000 feet deep in sedimentary rock. 10 miles from ground zero it would feel like a 7.5 magnitude Earthquake and a 2,900 mph wind would devastate the landscape. The extremely remote chance that such a dangerous mountain sized space rock has our number on it is what keeps my team going to our four telescopes in the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson, Arizona.
For Travelers in the Night this is Dr. Al Grauer
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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