A radar view of asteroid 2014 HQ124 as it passed not too far from earth on June 8th:
From the caption:
Radar data of asteroid 2014 HQ124 taken over four hours on June 8, 2014, when the asteroid was between 864,000 miles (1.39 million kilometers) and 902,000 miles (1.45 million kilometers) from Earth. The data reveals asteroid 2014 HQ124 to be an elongated, irregular object that is at least 1,200 feet (370 meters) wide on its long axis. The radar data were obtained using NASA's 70-meter Goldstone antenna, the same antenna used for communicating with spacecraft in deep space. The Goldstone radar team paired with the Arecibo Observatory (Goldstone sending radar, Arecibo receiving) for the first five frames of this movie in order to collect higher quality data, resulting in sharper images. The other frames were made by both sending and receiving with antennas at the Goldstone complex.
As part of the agency’s Asteroid Grand Challenge, NASA is partnering with private internet technology company Slooh to engage citizen scientists in the effort to track and characterize near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) that are potentially hazardous to human populations.
Slooh’s global network of web-connected telescopes will be available for use by amateur astronomers for monitoring and characterizing NEOs. Citizen scientists without access to professional equipment will have the opportunity to be a part of the global challenge to find hazardous NEOs. NASA also is partnering with Slooh on live astronomy events.
“We are excited by the opportunity to tap into Slooh’s network of amateur astronomers, who are already producing scientific papers with their work,” said Jason Kessler, program executive for the Asteroid Grand Challenge. “We look forward to expanding the meaningful science the Slooh network can provide in support of the grand challenge.”
The live astronomy events on which NASA and Slooh will partner include the LINEAR comet meteor shower, occurring Friday, May 23, and Saturday, May 24. Slooh will provide live feeds of the event from 6 p.m. EDT Friday to 3 a.m. Saturday on the company’s website and the UStream feed for NASA’s Marshall Spaceflight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, at:
Live astronomy events through the NASA and Slooh platforms increase the number of people who can watch and actively participate in science as it happens. Future events will include NASA experts offering commentary on live events. Slooh plans to provide NASA with relevant observation data from these events, which may be used for grand challenge citizen science efforts.
“This partnership is a great validation of our approach to engage the public in the exploration of space,” says Michael Paolucci, founder and CEO of Slooh. “NASA understands the importance of citizen science and knows a good way to get amateur astronomers involved is to offer them ways to do productive astronomy. Slooh does that by giving them remote access to great telescopes situated at leading observatory sites around the world.”
The Asteroid Grand Challenge is built on such collaborative efforts. The partnership with Slooh augments grand challenge partnerships with SpaceGambit and Planetary Resources Inc., and extending the search from existing data to direct observation through telescopes.
Through NASA’s asteroid initiative, the agency seeks to enhance its ongoing work in the identification and characterization of near-Earth objects for further scientific investigation. This work includes locating potentially hazardous asteroids and identifying those viable for redirection to a stable lunar orbit for future exploration by astronauts. The Asteroid Grand Challenge, one part of the asteroid initiative, expands the agency’s efforts beyond traditional boundaries and encourages partnerships and collaboration with a variety of organizations.
In a special Earth Day program on April 22, Seattle’s Museum of Flight hosted three prominent US Astronauts supporting the B612 Foundation for a press conference which unveiled a new video showing the surprising number of asteroid impacts on Earth during the last decade, and the even more surprising fact that we can prevent future asteroid impacts.
“The visualization shows data from the nuclear weapons test warning network supplied by Peter Brown, Western University of Canada. This network has detected 26 multi-kiloton explosions since 2001, all of which are due to asteroid impacts. This shows that asteroid impacts are NOT rare — but actually 3-10 times more common than we previously thought.” stated Dr. Lu “The fact that none of these asteroid impacts shown in the video was detected in advance shows that the only thing preventing a catastrophe from a “city-killer” sized asteroid is blind luck. The goal of the B612 Sentinel Mission is to find and track asteroids decades before they hit Earth, allowing us to easily deflect them.”
The B612 Foundation is partnered with Ball Aerospace to build the Sentinel Infrared Space Telescope Mission. From a Venus-like orbit around the Sun, Sentinel will be the most capable system for finding and tracking asteroids ever built.
During the Press Conference, Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders unveiled a new mural that highlights the importance of the Sentinel Mission. His EARTHRISE photo shows the Earth rising above the crater-strewn surface of the Moon, and will remain on display at the Seattle Museum of Flight. “We began Apollo 8 thinking we were going to learn about the Moon, instead, we began a new understanding of our Earth.” The EARTHRISE photo will serve as the backdrop for the morning Press Conference.
Tom Jones, four-time US Shuttle Astronaut and President of the Association of Space Explorers, explained the recent UN resolution calling for international cooperation for detection of dangerous asteroids.
Earlier in the month I posted about a Skydiver imaging a meteoroid flying past him during jump. However, analysis of the images by astronomer Phil Plait made it more likely it was just a rock that had gotten bound up in the parachute during its packing and had fallen out when the chute unfurled.