Travelers in the Night Eps. 805 & 806: Very Close Miss & Distant PHA

Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( @Nmcanopus ) is an
observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired
from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006.
travelersinthenight.org


From July, 2024.


Today's 2 topics:


- During a recent 60 day period asteroid hunters observed 23
asteroids which came closer to us than our Moon. Six of them
passed closer to the Earth’s surface than 22,236 miles which is
the distance to our communication satellites.


 


- It is hard to obtain time on the 8m Gemini South Observatory
telescope on Cerro Pachon in Chile and the Large Binocular
Telescope with its twin 8m mirrors on Mt. Graham, Arizona since
they are among the largest telescopes in the world. My Catalina
Sky Survey teammate Kacper Wierzchos wrote a scientifically
competitive proposal to obtain the time to track the potentially
hazardous asteroid 2016 PR38 on both of these telescopes when it
was near its furthest point from our Sun and thus much too faint
for the telescopes asteroid hunters routinely use.


 


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