Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Eps. 273E & 274E: Neighboring World & Coming Out Of Monsoon
Organization: Travelers in The Night
Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus
Description: Today’s two stroy:
- Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory in Chile have discovered a rocky Earth-like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our Sun. The planet named Proxima b is about 1.3 times more massive than Earth, orbits its dim red star every 11 days, and may always keep the same side towards its sun. Attention grabbing is the fact that Proxima b is at the right distance from its sun to allow for liquid water on its surface.
- In the southwest, the life giving monsoon rains occur in July and August, divide the observing year into two halves, and give asteroid hunters a chance to do major equipment maintenance and upgrades. My Catalina Sky Survey teammates Richard Kowalski and Rose Matheny started the new observing season after the monsoon weather began to taper off using our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon and 30 inch Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow respectively. Richard and Rose were given a three night clear break in the weather during which they were able to discover a dozen new Earth approaching asteroids.
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:
273E -Mars Impactor
In 2015 the Earth was struck by at least 43 meteoroids which created bright fireballs. Their arrival does not seem to be correlated with the position of the Earth in it’s orbit about the Sun.
Overall a given piece of ground on Mars is several times more likely to be hit by a space rock than is a similar sized area on Earth. Recently, Youngmin JeongAhn and Dr. Renu Malhotra of the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory published a paper reporting their analysis of the current impact rate of small objects onto Mars. The red planet’s very elliptical orbit is aligned with the known Mars crossing asteroids and carries it nearer the main asteroid belt when it is farthest from the Sun. JeongAhn and Malhotra have determined that these factors make the chance of Mars being hit by a half mile sized asteroid to be three times greater when it is it’s furtherest from the Sun than it is at the other extreme of it’s orbit. They also find that the impact rate of smaller 3 foot diameter objects, which cause fireballs on Earth, is likely to change between 3 to 15 times as Mars orbits the Sun. There could be as few as 15 or as many as 186 new impact craters every Martian year. This estimate will be refined as the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter continues to discover fresh craters on the surface of the red planet.
All of this is causing me to wonder if in the future the Martian tourist industry will bring visitors to view super meteor storms which occur each year when Mars is furtherest from the Sun.
274E – Coming Out Of Monsoon
In the southwest, the life giving monsoon rains occur in July and August, divide the observing year into two halves, and give asteroid hunters a chance to do major equipment maintenance and upgrades. My Catalina Sky Survey teammates Richard Kowalski and Rose Matheny started the new observing season after the monsoon weather began to taper off using our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon and 30 inch Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow respectively. Richard and Rose were given a three night clear break in the weather during which they were able to discover a dozen new Earth approaching asteroids.
The largest is 2016 QJ44. It is a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, approximately 1200 feet in diameter. Not to worry. It never comes closer than 10 times the Moon’s distance from us. Two others are about 400 feet in dimeter but never get very close to planet Earth. The closest approaching asteroid in this group of twelve is 2016 QL44. It is about 115 feet in diameter, orbits the Sun every two and a half years, and can come as close as three and a half the Moon’s distance from us.
My team the Catalina Sky Survey is a part of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program. We use three telescopes, 24 nights per month, in the Catalina mountains north of Tucson, Arizona to search the night sky for Earth approaching objects.
For Travelers in the Night this is Dr. Al Grauer.
365 Days of Astronomy
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