Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Eps. 127E & 128E: Next Step to Mars & A Weird Orbit
Organization: Travelers in The Night
Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus
Description: Today’s 2 topics:
- NASA is proposing the next step on the path to Mars to be a mission to 2008 EV5.
- 2015 FS332 has an orbit that is inclined by 35 degrees with respect to the ecliptic.
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:
127E: Next Step to Mars
A trip to our Moon is one of the great human adventures of all time. However, such a voyage is but a small step of about 30 Earth diameters into the vastness of space.
NASA is proposing the next step on the path to Mars to be a mission to an asteroid or a boulder taken from the surface of an asteroid. These are objects, which have been previously captured and, placed into orbit around our Moon. Such a voyage would take 4 times longer than an Apollo mission and would gain valuable experience with solar electric propulsion, a new generation of space suits, and other vital components of a manned Mars mission.
One candidate for the boulder mission is 2008 EV5. It was discovered by my team, the NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey’s 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon in Arizona. By measuring the colors that are present and missing in the light that this asteroid reflects, astronomers have determined that it has a composition similar to a meteor which fell in France in 1864. This rare type of space rock has, with the exception of the gases hydrogen and helium, has the same composition as the Sun. It is thus a sample of the primitive material which came together to form our solar system.
Radar observations show 2008 EV5 to be roughly a sphere having a diameter of about 4 football fields. It has a crater about 1/4 of its diameter indicting a major collision in the past. A visit or a sample and return mission to this small world will provide a mother load of information about the history of our solar system.
128E: A Weird Orbit
A trip to our Moon is one of the great human adventures of all time. However, such a voyage is but a small step of about 30 Earth diameters into the vastness of space.
NASA is proposing the next step on the path to Mars to be a mission to an asteroid or a boulder taken from the surface of an asteroid. These are objects, which have been previously captured and, placed into orbit around our Moon. Such a voyage would take 4 times longer than an Apollo mission and would gain valuable experience with solar electric propulsion, a new generation of space suits, and other vital components of a manned Mars mission.
One candidate for the boulder mission is 2008 EV5. It was discovered by my team, the NASA funded Catalina Sky Survey’s 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon in Arizona. By measuring the colors that are present and missing in the light that this asteroid reflects, astronomers have determined that it has a composition similar to a meteor which fell in France in 1864. This rare type of space rock has, with the exception of the gases hydrogen and helium, has the same composition as the Sun. It is thus a sample of the primitive material which came together to form our solar system.
Radar observations show 2008 EV5 to be roughly a sphere having a diameter of about 4 football fields. It has a crater about 1/4 of its diameter indicting a major collision in the past. A visit or a sample and return mission to this small world will provide a mother load of information about the history of our solar system.
For Travelers in the Night this is Dr. Al Grauer.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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