Podcaster: Dr. Al Grauer
Title: Travelers in the Night Eps. 809 & 810: How Close Can An Asteroid Approach & Humans Can
Organization: Travelers in The Night
Link : Travelers in the Night ; @Nmcanopus
Description: Today’s two stories:
- The Earth Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance or Earth MOID for short is the closest an asteroid can come to our home planet on it’s current orbit.
- The James Webb Space Telescope or JWST for short is a superb scientific instrument which is revolutionizing our understanding of the structure of the universe and is providing a tool to help us to explore the possibility of life outside of Earth. It is also a testament to what humans can accomplish by working together..
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. 809: How Close Can An Asteroid Approach
Using our 60-inch telescope on Mount Lemmon, Arizona, my Catalina Sky Survey teammates, Hannes Grohler and Jacqueline Vazquez, discovered a rapidly moving point of light in the constellation of Boötes. It was subsequently observed by telescopes in Arizona, Hawaii, Tenerife, Illinois, Kansas, and California.
Scientists used these data to determine that it is a 2 to 3 football field-sized asteroid, which can come almost as close as our Moon on its 4.7-year-long path about the Sun. It was given the name 2024 JV33. In 2024, this large space rock came to 12 times the Moon’s distance from us.
Given its size and potential nearness to our home planet, NASA classifies 2024 JV33 as a potentially hazardous asteroid. 2024 JV33’s Earth Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance, or Earth MOID for short, is only 1.2 times the Moon’s distance from us. An asteroid with a much smaller Earth MOID than 2024 JV33 is Apophis.
On one of the luckiest Friday the 13th’s in history, April 13th of 2029, this nearly 4 football field-sized asteroid, Apophis, will pass less than 20,000 miles from the Earth’s surface. It will transit through the cloud of geostationary communications satellites, which ring our planet, and will appear to be a rapidly moving third magnitude star. Astronomers have carefully tracked Apophis for years and are absolutely certain that it will not impact Earth. This is a really good thing, since an impacting asteroid the size of Apophis would likely produce mass casualties and a major disruption of human activities such as agriculture.
Ep. 810: Humans Can
The James Webb Space Telescope, or JWST for short, is a superb scientific instrument which is revolutionizing our understanding of the structure of the universe and is providing a tool to help us to explore the possibility of life outside Earth. It is also a testament to what humans can accomplish by working together. On the order of 10,000 scientists, engineers, technicians, and other professionals from 15 countries, 258 companies, scores of universities, and many government agencies have worked together to create and place this telescope into operation four times the moon’s distance from our home planet.
For success, the JWST had to successfully complete 344 single-point failure mode operations. This was necessitated by the fact that JWST’s final tennis court-sized dimensions was folded up to fit inside the 15-foot diameter, 53 feet long, ATRIAN 5 rocket payload capsule. The failure to complete any one of the unfolding steps would have doomed the mission to be a $10 billion failure.
Unlike the International Space Station and the Hubble Space Telescope, once JWST was launched, it had to function without any direct human intervention. JWST’s mirror is three times the diameter of the Hubble Space Telescope’s primary mirror. Yet, along with its giant sunshield, had to unfold and snap into place. JWST’s orbit is designed to constantly allow its sunshield to block heat and light from the sun, earth, and moon, and still allow the telescope to view objects from within our solar system out to near the edge of the observable universe.
For Travelers in the Night, this is Dr. Al Grower.
End of podcast:
365 Days of Astronomy
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Until next time let the stars guide your curiosity!