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PODCAST

Travelers In The Night

Albert D. Grauer

A real "Science Snack" for anyone who is interested in the extraterrestrial.Dr. Al Grauer is a member of the Catalina Sky Survey which has led the world in near Earth asteroid discoveries for 17 of the past 19 years.The music is "Eternity" by John Lyell.Astronomy Asteroids Space NASA Comets Earth Impact Aliens

science astronomy

All Episodes

2:01

630-Largest Asteroid

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/03/05

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Hercules when he spotted a fast moving point of light streaking through the night sky 159 million miles from Earth. David's discovery is only one of three Earth approaching asteroids discovered in 2020 which is larger than 1 km in diameter. NASA is especially interested in these very large asteroids since the impact of a 1 km or greater diameter asteroid is likely to produce global climate change.

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2:01

118E-130-Things That Dim In The Night

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/03/02

Objects in the Universe that brighten rapidly grab our attention. One of the most spectacular examples is Kepler's supernova. In 1604 this star was bright enough to be seen with the naked eye in the daytime for over three weeks. Another occurred in 1843 when a comet became almost as bright as the limb of the Sun. Over the centuries there have been many suddenly appearing objects in both the day and night sky. Possibly as the result of this history, most of the surveys which look for time variable

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2:01

629-Loneliest Asteroid

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/02/26

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Canes Venatici with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, AZ when he found our teams loneliest asteroid of 2020. The possibility of a tough lonely unknown asteroid with our number on it keeps asteroid hunters scanning the sky.

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2:01

117E-129-A 3 City Block Sized Asteroid

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/02/23

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammates Carson Fuls and Jess Johnson discovered an asteroid which comes close enough and is large enough be be classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid. It was subsequently observed by telescopes in New Zealand, Australia, Italy, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and Illinois and given the name 2015 DH155. Fortunately, its orbit never brings it closer than about 16 times the Moon's distance from planet Earth.

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2:01

628-Close Approaches

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/02/19

In 2020 my team the Catalina Sky Survey discovered 171 asteroids which can occasionally come closer to us than our Moon. In fact 21 of them, averaging 25 feet in diameter can come close enough to our home planet to pass through the cloud of communications satellites which surround Earth.

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2:01

116E-128-Buzzed By An Asteroid

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/02/16

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammates Carson Fuls and Jess Johnson discovered a rapidly moving point of light in the sky. It was subsequently observed by telescopes in Italy, Arizona, New Zealand, and Australia. Twenty six hours before humans spotted it, this 10 foot diameter space rock came within two and a half Earth diameters of our planets surface and was traveling at 8 miles per second. At that point it was bright enough to be seen in a small telescope had anyone been looking. In the future

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2:01

627-Toughest Asteroids

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/02/12

In 2020, my team the Catalina Sky Survey discovered 14 extremely tough asteroids which regularly travel closer to the Sun than the planet Mercury. They are likely to contain at least as much iron, nickel, platinum, gold, and other valuable metals as a stony meteorite and may be worth billions of dollars on the used metal markets. In the future they may become an important source of raw materials for future asteroid mining space colonists

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2:01

115E-127-Tied For Third

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/02/09

The appearance of a naked eye comet is one of natures most impressive displays. Humans have regarded these suddenly appearing objects as everything from a sign of an upcoming disaster, to the bringers of water and organic materials to Earth. Not all comets are discovered with large telescopes and sophisticated electronic cameras. They sometimes sneak up on our planet by brightening suddenly. David Levy discovered 8 comets visually with small backyard telescopes. Perhaps, with persistence you too

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2:01

626-Lunar Impactors

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/02/05

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Teddy Pruyne was observing in the constellation of Pisces with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, AZ when he discovered a small space rock on a path which takes it near the moon on its 2.3 year long orbit about the Sun. On this trip Teddy's small space rock missed the Moon. Other tiny asteroids are not so lucky. Imagine the excitement which will occur when scientists are able invite the people to go outside to witness the impact of a small boulder on the

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2:01

114E-126-Ready Yourself For Alien Life

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/02/02

Carl Sagan said that "The Universe is a pretty big place. If it's just us, seems like an awful waste of space". It is hard to look into the sky on a clear dark night and not share this feeling.

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2:01

625-Record Year

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/29

In 2020 the asteroid hunting community discovered 2,946 Earth approaching space rocks orbiting our Sun. My team, the Catalina Sky Survey, led the pack with 1,542 to our credit. Fortunately we have yet to find an asteroid large enough to do damage that is on a collision course with our home planet.

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2:01

113E-125-NASA RADAR Finds Asteroid Moon

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/26

Asteroid 2004 BL86 was discovered more than 10 years ago by the LINEAR program in New Mexico.Until recently, we knew asteroid 2004 BL86 only as a faint moving point of light in the night sky. Early in 2015 it came close to planet Earth. RADAR images obtained with the 230 foot wide NASA Deep Space Network show that it is about 1100 feet in diameter and has a small moon about 230 feet across.

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2:01

624-In Coming

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/22

Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard was asteroid hunting with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when he spotted a moving point of light streaking at 6.9 mi/sec through the constellation of Canis Minor. Greg's discovery will not impact Earth in the foreseeable future, however, rest assured that asteroid hunters will continue to track it as it passes near Earth and Mars to make sure that 2020 XU6's path does not change to put it on a collision course with Earth.

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2:01

112E-124-Great Shefford Observatory

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/19

On the first night an Earth approaching asteroid candidate is discovered, one is lucky to obtain observations for a few hours along its path in the sky. Since a typical near Earth asteroid takes from a few hundred days to several years to complete a trip around the Sun, it takes more than a few hours of data to be able to predict where it will go. Peter Birtwhistle of the Great Shefford Observatory in England is one of unsung heroes of the asteroid hunting community. On a recent observing run he

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2:01

623-Arecibo

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/15

The National Science Foundation has announced that it will close and decommission the giant RADAR telescope at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. Whip lashing cables during an unpredictable catastrophic collapse of the entire structure make it life threatening for crews to try to shore up the support structure. We all will miss this scientific treasure.

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2:01

111E-123-A New Discovery Not

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/12

I was observing with the NASA funded, Catalina Sky Survey, 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, when I found an interesting moving point of light in the night sky. It appeared to be on the path of an Earth approaching asteroid. I submitted my observations to the Minor Planet Center. Telescopes in Germany, New Mexico, Illinois, Pennsylvania, and England observed it. The Minor Planet Center used these data to calculate an orbit. This orbit revealed the asteroid to be large enough and close enough to

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2:01

622-Lonely Vigil

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/08

On some nights an asteroid hunter searches for Earth approaching objects near the ecliptic plane where the planets and most of the asteroids are located. During these busy times the telescope takes images of many interesting moving objects. On other long lonely nights the search takes the telescope to the far north portion of the sky where it is rare to spot any moving objects traveling through fields of millions of unblinking stars. The reward is when you find a moving object it will be

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2:01

110E-122-This Comet Will Never Return

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/05

Unlike Halley's [h AE - l ee ] comet which returns to our neighborhood once about every 76 years, Comet C2013 US10/Catalina will pass this way once never to return. In 2028 Kowalski's comet will pass Pluto's average distance from the Sun. After that it will continue to move away from the Sun, become an interstellar traveler in the night, and perhaps some day a countless number of human lifetimes from now become a comet in another solar system.

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2:01

621-Morning Sky

Travelers In The Night ·

2021/01/01

Although the orbit of an Aten asteroid crosses our path in space on its travel about the Sun it stays mostly inside the Earth's orbit making it difficult to discover. Since the Aten asteroid 2020 VZ5 is likely to eventually collide with Earth, Venus, or our Moon asteroid hunters will continue to observe it to make sure its path does not change and become a threat to our home planet.

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2:01

109E-121-Three Is A Mystery

Travelers In The Night ·

2020/12/29

Within a time span of one and a half hours, the two telescopes of the NASA funded, University of Arizona, Catalina Sky Survey, discovered three asteroids whose orbits are similar enough to grab one's attention. However, they different enough to keep us from jumping to the conclusion that they are part of an asteroid collision fragment family. There has been some speculation about the possibility of killer asteroid swarms which threaten the Earth. There is no evidence to support these ideas.

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