Investigation 7-2:
Asteroid Search
In Chapter 1, we saw how
asteroids can be major threats to the well being of life on Earth. You
can find out more about the NASA efforts concerning near Earth asteroids
at the NASA Center for Near Earth Object Studies:
The Hands-On Universe (HOU) asteroid search began as a research project started by high school teachers Hughes Pack and Tim Spuck in 1996. In October of 1998 students at Northfield Mount Hermon School in western Massachusetts, USA, discovered a faint and distant Kuiper Belt object, now known as 1998 FS144. The project has used images from large telescopes, observatory archives, and small telescopes for asteroid tracking, searching, and discovery. Currently, the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (http://iasc.hsutx.edu/), an educational outreach program for high schools and colleges, provided at no cost to the participating schools. IASC (pronounced “Isaac”) is a collaboration of:
WISE surveyed the whole sky in infrared light, producing an all-sky image
atlas and catalogue of over 300 million infrared sources. In addition
to asteroid research, WISE scientists studied the coldest and nearest
stars, regions of new star and planet formation, the structure of the
Milky Way galaxy, ultra-luminous infrared galaxies, and the large scale
structure of the Universe.
On the WISE Asteroid Workshops web page, you can find the workshop booklet Asteroid Wise which has six chapters:
1. Beware of Large Flying Objects (derived from A Changing Cosmos chapter 1)
2. Astronomers' Tools (A Changing Cosmos chapter 2)
3. Asteroid Basics (basics of how asteroids are discovered)
4. How Close Will It Come? (derived from A Changing Cosmos chapter 4 on parallax)
5. Spinning Space Rocks (asteroid light curves)
6. Getting Involved in the Search (including IASC)
Chapter 5 on asteroid light curves has two parts: 22 Kaliope Light Curve and Rotation Period Of An“AsterSpud” (using a rotating potato as an asteroid simulation).
In February of 2018, after the launch of a Tesla Roadster into space, a team of astronomers were able to make observations of it and generate the light curve below that appeared in a tweet (https://twitter.com/jotajotahermes/status/962545252446932993): Text of the tweet: "Early this morning we measured the brightness changes of a car tumbling in space! Credit to Erik Dennihy (@UNC), we can report that Tesla Roadster (Starman, 2018-017A) is rotating with a period of 4.7589 +/- 0.0060 minutes." A subsequent tweet has a timelapse movie of the Roadster. |