A recent scientific paper characterizes the 123 grams of the regolith or surface material from the asteroid Bennu which NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft brought back to Earth after a successful 7 year sample and return mission.Determining the chemical composition of asteroids like Bennu is essential to planning asteroid mining missions as well how to best mitigate the damage which would result from the impact of a large asteroid with our number on it.

Presently the surface of Mars is very dry and any liquid water that reaches it quickly boils away since the martian atmospheric pressure is what you could experience in your space suit 30 to 50 miles above the Earth's surface. However, since the martian gravity is about 1/3 that of the Earth, it's crust is less dense and more porous than what we find on our home planet. This situation leads Dr. Alfred McEwen of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory to state “I consider it likely that there are deep pockets of water in the martian crust not yet detected”. Letting our imaginations run wild, if there are deposits of liquid water miles underground perhaps there might be subterranean lakes fed by volcanic tubes. Lava tube environments could be warmed by geothermal sources, have trapped, enclosed, pockets of liquid water, and be replenished by water flows up from the martian mantle. Even today these deep martian caves are theoretically likely to contain warm mineral rich liquid water in contact with a thermal energy source. It is intriguing to consider that deep inside Mars all of the necessary ingredients for life may be present together. On Earth we find this type of environment near hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor to have rich biological diversity of living organisms. Perhaps there are martian organisms in deep underground aquifers that migrated there from the surface as conditions changed or maybe that has always been their home. The only way to know if any parts of this fantasy are true is to find and explore the deep caves of Mars.

During a recent 60 day period of time 23 space rocks came closer to Earth than our Moon

In less than two hours my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Allesandra Serrano discovered two small fast moving space rocks. Both of them passed through the Earth-Moon system unimpeded. Other space rocks are not so lucky.

The source of the Geminid Meteor shower each December is a strange little asteroid.

Carson Fuls, one of my Catalina Sky Survey teammates, is leading the effort that will allow you to join our NASA funded adventure in asteroid hunting and discovery. You will learn how to scan our nightly archival images to discover new small solar system worlds.Happy asteroid hunting.

Recently Dr. Michael Gillon of the University of Liege in Belgium and a team of astronomers hypothesized since that approximately 2/3 of the stars in our neighborhood are red dwarf stars some of them might host inhabitable planets. To test this idea the researchers began to carefully monitor some nearby red dwarfs with a robotic telescope in Chile to see if any of them the have regular dips in brightness which indicate the presence of planets orbiting them.
This team of astronomers were delighted when a faint star in an infrared star catalogue showed regular dips in brightness indicating the presence of three planets. Followup observations by the European Southern Observatories' 8 meter telescope in Chile confirmed the presence of three Earth sized planets orbiting a star now known as TRAPPIST-1. This extremely faint red star is only slightly larger than the planet Jupiter and puts out 0.05% of the energy of our Sun. Two of its Earth sized planets orbit every 1.5 and 2.4 days receiving four and two times the radiation the Earth receives from our Sun. They are probably two hot to be habitable. The third Earth sized planet orbits farther away and thus might have life permitting temperatures on its surface.
The discovery of three Earth sized planets orbiting the extremely, cool, faint red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 suggests the possibility of the presence of many more relatively nearby Earth like planets. The next generation of ground and space based telescopes will tell us about their surface conditions.

Hungarian astronomer and geography teacher Krisztián Sárneczky was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Lynx with 0.6m (24 inch) telescope at the Piszkéstető station in the Mátra Mountains when an unknown object streaked through a set of his images. It is the 7th such object to be tracked in outer space and then observed to enter our atmosphere. A tiny asteroid the size of 2023 CX1 enters the Earth’s atmosphere about once a month and gives asteroid hunters a chance to practice for a big one.

About 20 years ago Dr. Elizabeth Austin began to investigate Polar Vortex winds during the long winter nights near the poles. One of its components, the stratospheric polar night jet, can create 300 mph winds which in turn can project atmospheric mountain waves as high as 130,000 feet into the stratosphere.
The Airbus Perlan II is an engineless glider designed to surf stratospheric mountain waves in our atmosphere to the edge of space. Cruising at 400 mph at an altitude of 90,000 feet this glider with a wing span of 85 feet will become the highest level flying winged vehicle in history and will be able to travel above 98% of the Earth's atmosphere. The cabin of Perlan II is pressurized and is occupied by a crew of two who make their high altitude flights from a base in Argentina.
The Perlan II will carry a package of scientific instruments which will enable it to study the atmosphere without the presence of a polluting engine to bias the measurements. The results will provide important information about our atmosphere which will help humans to adapt to the climate change we have created.
At the highest point of its flight Perlan II will be flying in an atmosphere similar to what exists on the planet Mars.
In the future high flying commercial aircraft in our atmosphere as well as vehicles which will enable us to explore our neighbor Mars will benefit from the data obtained by the Airbus Perlan II.

An extremely wide field of view camera, the Zwicky Transient Facility, operated by Caltech on Palomar Mountain in California is able to take images of the entire northern sky every couple of days. This capability has enabled to astronomers to find nearly 8,000, Type IA supernova. A recent discovery SN Zwicky is unique.

During the course of a single night our telescopes can find more than 10,000 moving objects. Fortunately our software geniuses are able to sort through this pile to allow us to focus on unknown objects which require additional observations. Most of the time asteroid hunters are able to decide if an unknown moving object is an Earth approaching asteroid by observing it for a few nights to determine it's path around the Sun. However, recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammates Alex Gibbs, Greg Leonard, Carson Fuls, and Richard Kowalski as well as observers in Hawaii, New Mexico, Australia, and Kitt Peak in Arizona had to follow an unknown object for nearly a month to determine its nature.
The new object they discovered is now called 2016 EJ203. It is about 3000 feet in diameter and takes 504 years to orbit the Sun on a path which goes from between Mars and Jupiter out to 3 times Pluto's distance from the Sun. In 2016 humans were able to spot 2016 EJ203 during the two weeks every 500 years that it is bright enough for us to detect. The Minor planet Center has classified 2016 EJ203 as a Trans-Neptunian object. Our catalog of these distant places now has several hundred entries ranging in size from Pluto and 4 other large dwarf planets to small objects like 2016 EJ203.
This object may be the nucleus of a burned out comet or a fragment left over from the formation of the solar system.

Project Breakthrough Listen is spending $100 million over 10 years so that radio telescopes can search for signals which may indicate extraterrestrial intelligence.In a recent article in the Astronomical Journal a team of astronomers published a paper entitled “A 4–8 GHz Galactic Center Search for Periodic Technosignatures”. The teams first effort yielded a null result, however, they plan to continue to search for rotating beacons which could be used by extraterrestrials to communicate with far flung regions of the Milky Way.

Recently Dr. Adam Frank of the University of Rochester and Dr Woodruff Sullivan of the University of Washington published a paper in which they addressed the question "What are the odds that humans are the only technological species that has ever arisen in a given volume of space"? Humans continue to look into the night sky and wonder what is out there. The immense distances and the uncertain lifetime of an advanced civilization make it seem unlikely that we will discover intelligent beings outside of Earth. However, I remain hopeful of one day waking to the news that we have received signals from thinking beings which live elsewhere in the Milky Way.

Dangerous Asteroids Are Still Out There Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard discovered a rapidly moving point of light in the night sky. Subsequent observations made by telescopes in Arizona, Romania, Illinois, the Czech Republic, Australia, and France revealed it to be a close approaching Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. The Minor Planet Center named it 2016 WJ1. This asteroid is about 200 yards in diameter, orbits the Sun once every 567 days, and currently can come to within about 26,000 miles of the Earth's surface. 2016 WJ1's orbit eventually will bring it near Mars, Earth, our Moon, and Venus. Any of these encounters have the potential to change it's path around the Sun.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Cancer with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona when he discovered a potentially hazardous asteroid, 2023 KM5.Rest assured there is no way, on its current path, that 2023 KM5 will impact the Earth in the foreseeable future, however, asteroid hunters will continue to track it to make sure its orbit does not change to make it a threat.

Most asteroids that we observe have been baked by the Sun for billions of years. As a result, any ices or frozen gases that they may have once possessed are long gone. Comets on the other hand have spent so much time far from the Sun that they still contain volatile materials. As a typical comet approaches the Sun, the frozen gases and ices it contains evaporate to form a beautiful coma and a long tail.

In 2023 the James Webb Space Telescope spotted a geyser of water vapor extending more than 80% of the Earth’s diameter erupting from Saturn’s moon Enceladus. If life does exist in the salty ocean of Enceladus shielded from the rest of the Universe by a thick layer of ice and rock its nature remains a mystery.

More than 25 years ago Voyager 1 took a picture of the Earth from beyond Pluto's orbit. This image shows our home planet to be an isolated tiny pale blue dot floating in the vastness of space.

Very small fast moving asteroids pass through our solar system.About once a month an object like 2023 KU4 enters our atmosphere, releases the energy of approximately 2.4 tons of TNT, explodes at an altitude of about 280,000 feet, creates a spectacular light show, produces a sonic boom that is barely audible, and rains pieces of itself on the ground for meteorite hunters to discover. Check out the fireball log on the American Meteor Society website for examples.

We will probably never know the details of the collision that put my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Carson Fuls' recent discovery, 2016 HD3, on its current path. What we do know is that Carson's new space rock is about 25 feet in diameter and in the next 100 years will make 53 close approaches to planet Earth and 12 to our sister planet Venus. In 2016 this small object passed to near both the Earth and our Moon. It's 322 day orbit around the Sun can someday bring it to about a quarter of the Moon's distance from where we live.

Very small fast moving asteroids pass through our solar system.About once a month an object like 2023 KU4 enters our atmosphere, releases the energy of approximately 2.4 tons of TNT, explodes at an altitude of about 280,000 feet, creates a spectacular light show, produces a sonic boom that is barely audible, and rains pieces of itself on the ground for meteorite hunters to discover. Check out the fireball log on the American Meteor Society website for examples.

Blinded by inappropriate outdoor night lighting, much of humanity is now unaware of the rich beauty of the Universe which surrounds them. To see sights which have inspired countless generations of lovers, poets, scientists, authors, artists, mathematicians, and dreamers people must travel out of their artificial light domes to one of the few remote locations which offer the opportunity to view the natural night sky.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Jacqueline Fazekas was asteroid hunting , in the evening twilight, with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when she discovered a very large object in an unusual orbit. Rest assured that astronomers will continue to track Jacqueline's discovery to make sure that its orbit does not change to make it a threat as it passes near Jupiter, Earth, and Venus.

Covered by a blanket of lunar soil to protect it from BB sized meteoroids arriving a gunshot speeds, a village is nestled in a large crater on our moon. The individual structures are connected together by tunnels. The site was chosen to access the water and metals which were brought to the site by asteroid impacts.

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

To the amazement of NASA scientists, when the NASA OSIRIS-Rex touched down on the surface of Bennu to obtain a sample, the sample collecting arm continued to sink into Bennu until rocket thrusters reversed its downward motion and allowing it to escape.

Jupiter protects us as well as directs some objects our way.
Jupiter, the king of our solar system, has provided us with a place to stand and air to breathe.

Humans are slamming projectiles into space rocks. These experiments will give us the know how to deal with a dangerous space rock which has our number on it

The moon is being hit by objects in the present epoch.
Fresh lunar craters tell us about objects which enter the Earth-Moon system.

In 1972 Apollo 16 astronauts took an ultraviolet image of the Earth from the Moon which shows that like the Sun ,the Earth too, has a faint corona of gas surrounding it. Scientists are just beginning to explore how Earth's glow relates to our weather and climate.

Jupiter and Saturn helped to produce where we live.
Our home planet was formed after a period of chaos in the solar system
Today our solar system is a pretty calm place. However, meteorites we find on Earth as well as the cratering we observe on our Moon, Mercury, Mars, and other bodies suggest that our solar system was born wild and stayed that way for a while. There is also the puzzling fact that our sparsely packed inner solar system is very different from the densely packed, close in, planetary systems which have formed about nearby stars.

Traveling an additional billion miles beyond Pluto, the New Horizons spacecraft is now sending back data on 2014 MU69, a strange snow man shaped object which orbits the Sun once every 298 years. The New Horizons is spacecraft is likely to continue its lonely odyssey until the end of time.

Rocky metallic asteroid can stand the heat.
A block and a half sized asteroid makes visits to Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, and Jupiter.

In our Milky Way Galaxy alone there are probably 25 billion planets located within the habitable zone of its star where there could be air to breathe and liquid water on its surface. The search is on for advanced civilizations .

What happens when an asteroid is heading in our direction.
A close approaching asteroid was observed as it passed between the Earth and our Moon.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Carson Fuls discovered 2015 TC25 as a rapidly moving point of light in the night sky. Followup observations using data from four different telescopes has enabled a team of astronomers led by Dr. Vishnu Reddy of the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory to determine that this small asteroid reflects four times more of the sunlight than do most other Earth approaching asteroids. Dr. Reddy points out that large asteroids are covered by a blanket of dust but that "Small asteroids might be bald and dust free." This team of researchers found the surface of Carson's discovery to be similar to a small meteorite which fell to Earth in France in 1836.

Without followup data, many if not most of the Earth approaching objects would be lost as they move away from us leaving us with no idea when they might return to near Earth space or perhaps even strike our home planet.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammates have discovered an asteroid which could be a potential mining target. Mining asteroids may be a much cheaper way to get the raw materials that space colonists need when compared to the cost of lugging supplies up from the surface of our planet. Using the abundant solar energy in space, water ice from asteroids can be turned into hydrogen and oxygen which is ideal rocket fuel. The metals which many asteroids contain can be turned into the items space explorers need.

A small telescope makes a substantial contribution to our knowledge of the celestial visitors to our neighborhood

By drilling into a crater rim, researchers hope to discover how the Earth and it's life forms recovered from an asteroid impact.

On a recent training night with Teddy Pruyne at the controls of our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona, this duo discovered six new Earth Approaching Objects, an inner main belt asteroid, and rediscovered an inner main belt asteroid which had been lost.

You are less likely to be injured by a space rock than you might think
Recently in response to a question from a reader of the "Asteroid Day" blog, my Catalina Sky Survey team captain Eric Christensen, wrote a blog piece entitled "Is It Just Me, Or Are Asteroids More Dangerous They Used To Be?".

On a cold windy night, with clouds frustrating his search, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Alex Gibbs discovered 8 new celestial visitors while observing with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona

A careful study of the Earth's motion in space is a key to understanding past climate change and enables us to predict future patterns of flooding and drought.Wobbles tell all.

A large fireball meteor which exploded over Cuba produced a number of interesting results.

Recently a relatively dim object, Comet P/2016 BA14 flew past Earth at about 9 times the distance to our Moon from us. It was the third closest comet approach in recorded history. This situation allowed NASA scientists to use the Goldstone Solar System Radar located in California to obtain detailed RADAR images. These revealed the nucleus of P/2016 BA14 to be about 3000 feet in diameter. It slowly spins once very 35 to 40 hours as it travels on its 5.26 year orbital path around the Sun. Observations by the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea reveal the nucleus to be as dark as fresh asphalt which means it's surface is about 4 times darker than that of our moon.

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.

My Catalina Sky Survey Teammate Brian Africano discovered his 4th comet while asteroid hunting in the constellation of Ursa Major with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona. Observers with small telescopes equipped with electronic cameras are able to track Brian's 4th comet as it comes to near the orbit of Mars before it retreats into the cold dark region of our solar system not to return until 3000 AD.

A gentle method of causing an asteroid to miss planet Earth.
Will spray paint save the world?
Recently, NASA scientists using the giant RADAR telescope in Puerto Rico measured changes in the orbit of the asteroid Bennu. They found that a tiny sunlight pressure of 1/2 oz on this 68 million ton object has changed it's orbit about a hundred miles over a 12 year period of time. These NASA astronomers thus measured the Yarkovsky force which was first suggested by a Russian engineer more than a hundred years ago. This Yarkovsky force, named for its proposer, occurs because sunlight absorbed by an object in space is reradiated in a directional way and thus acts like a tiny rocket motor. It is likely that, over the eons, this tiny effect has changed the course of families of asteroids between Mars and Jupiter causing some of them to be sent in our direction.

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test or DART for short will test methods to make a dangerous asteroid miss Earth