Travelers in the Night Eps. 319 & 320: Lost and Found & WOW! What a Ride!

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 September 2024.


Today's 2 topics:


- When asteroid hunters follow an object in the night sky for a
few hours or a couple of days they are only able to observe a
snippet or tracklet of the object's hundreds to thousands of days
long path around the Sun. If we only have a short sample of an
orbit we loose precision to locate the object as the length of
time since the last observation increases. It is thus possible to
lose the knowledge of where to find a particular asteroid.


- It's a good thing this one will miss Earth! Riding the surface
of the asteroid that my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard
Kowalski recently discovered would be an incredible experience.


 


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