Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Eps. 791 & 792: A Fireball and Its Gifts & Closest Approaching Comet
Organization: Travelers in The Night
Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus
Description: Today’s two stories:
- It all started when Krisztián Sárneczky at the Konkoly Observatory near Budapest, Hungary reported the position and brightness of an unknown asteroid rapidly moving through the constellation of Lynx. Three hours later , the object, now called 2024 BX1 exploded harmlessly in our atmosphere.
- P/1999 J6 (SOHO) was discovered 10 May 1995 by Mike Oates as part of the Citizen Science Sun Grazer Project in which volunteers from all over the world have the chance to discover a comet in images taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or SOHO for short.RADAR studies of the daytime Arietid ( AIR-ee-uh-tids) meteor shower stream which peaks every June 7 indicates that P/1999 J6 (SOHO) could be one of the potential parent objects.
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:
Ep 791- A Fireball and Its Gifts
It all started when Christian Czarnecki at the Konkoli Observatory near Budapest, Hungary, reported the position and brightness of an unknown asteroid rapidly moving to the constellation of Lynx. For the next three hours, 14 observatories tracked Christian’s discovery as it brightened by a hundred times, and within 70 minutes of discovery, the NASA scout computer system predicted that it would enter the Earth’s atmosphere about 37 miles west of Berlin, Germany.
Scientists at the Minor Planet Center used the observational data to estimate its size to be about 3.3 feet in diameter and give it the name 2024 BX1. In 1930, 2024 BX1 came to about 2.3 times the lunar distance from Earth, and 5.8 hours before it impacted our home planet, in 2024, 2024 BX1 had passed three quarters of the lunar distance from our Moon, traveling at 7 miles per second. The fact that NASA was able to predict the point of impact to within a football field, and that the observers and all-sky cameras reported their fireball observations to the American Meteor Society, narrowed the search for meteorites which were created when 2024 BX1 harmlessly exploded in our atmosphere.
Trained meteorite hunters converged on the predicted strewn field area, and even though they looked a bit like granite earth rocks, were able to find pieces of 2024 BX1. They have a translucent glass crust, and under an electron microscope, show the chemical composition and structure of a rare albright meteorite, which come from the inner asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and which have a composition similar to what formed our home planet. For Travelers in the Night, this is Dr. Al Grower, stay tuned.
Ep 792 – Closest Approaching Comet
P1999 J6 SOHO was discovered 10 May of 1995 by Mike Oates as part of the Citizen Science Sungrazer Project, in which volunteers from all over the world have the chance to discover a comet in the images taken by the Heliospheric Observatory, or SOHO for short. P1999 J6 SOHO’s orbit brought it to 4.6 times the lunar distance from our home planet, 12 June of 1999, making it one of the closest comet approaches in history. P1999 J6 SOHO is no threat to humanity.
It will not come very close to Earth again until 2121, when it will pass 62 times the lunar distance from our home planet. P1999 J6 SOHO orbits the Sun on a 5.5-year-long path, which brings it so close to the Sun that it receives nearly 50 times the solar energy, which heats the surface of the planet Mercury to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. This extreme solar baking is likely to cause it to leave a trail of dust and small particles along its orbital path.
Radar studies of the daytime Eriutids meteor shower stream, which peaks every June 7th, indicates that P1999 J6 SOHO could be one of the potential parent objects. The Eriutids meteoroids seem to come from a point only 30 degrees from the Sun and enter the Earth’s atmosphere at 87,000 miles per hour. Radar studies indicate that there may be 60 to 200 meteors per hour during the daytime when they have to be extremely bright to be visible.
Your best chance to see an Eriutid is to look in the direction of the rising Sun in the hour before dawn. Some of them are very bright and skim relatively slowly through the Earth’s upper atmosphere, leaving a long trail. For Travelers in the Night, this is Dr. Al Grauer. Stay tuned.
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365 Days of Astronomy
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