Characterization of the June Epsilon
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Mining Outer Space: Who Owns the Asteroids?
G THE B IN EN V C R H E S A N 8 8 D 8 B 1 AR SINCE WWW. NYLJ.COM VOLUME 254—NO. 19 WEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2015 Outside Counsel Expert Analysis Mining Outer Space: Who Owns the Asteroids? ver the last two years, U.S. outer space. Most relate to navigation and business and policy makers By space flight—reflecting the aspirations have focused afresh on the Timothy G. (and limits) of the era. Two, however, commercial possibilities of the Nelson are potentially relevant: Article I of the asteroids—the solar system’s OST states that “[t]he exploration and use Ominor planetary objects. Most of these of outer space, including the moon and are located between Mars and Jupiter, other celestial bodies, shall be carried out while some are closer to Earth. Some The ‘Law’ of Space for the benefit and in the interests of all have large deposits of precious metals countries, irrespective of their degree of and other potentially valuable substanc- Until the Sputnik launch in the 1950s, economic or scientific development, and es.1 In the last few years, some private few steps had been taken in defining the shall be the province of all mankind.”8 operators have announced plans to mine legal rules relating to outer space. Indeed, Article II states that “[o]uter space, includ- them commercially, a concept that, until the only circumstance in which “owner- ing the moon and other celestial bodies, now, has been exclusively the realm of ship of space minerals” was relevant was is not subject to national appropriation science fiction.2 if someone was fortunate (or unfortunate) by claim of sovereignty, by means of use In apparent response to these initiatives, or occupation, or by any other means.”9 the House of Representatives recently The legal status of mining in Together, these articles mean that passed the “Space Resource Exploration space cannot be subdivided into national and Utilization Act of 2015,” H.R. -
Meteors, Meteoroids, and Meteorites by Cindy Grigg
Meteors, Meteoroids, and Meteorites By Cindy Grigg 1 Have you ever seen a falling star? You really saw a meteor. A meteor is a bright streak of light we see in the sky. It only lasts for a few seconds. People often call meteors shooting stars or falling stars because they look like stars falling from the sky. People sometimes call the brightest meteors fireballs. While it is in space, it is called a meteoroid. Meteoroids that reach the Earth are called meteorites. 2 A meteor appears when a chunk of metallic or stony matter called a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere from outer space. Air friction heats the meteoroid so that it glows. It creates a shining trail of gases and melted meteoroid particles. Most meteoroids burn up before reaching the Earth. Some leave a trail that lasts several seconds. Millions of meteors occur in the Earth's atmosphere every day. Most meteoroids that cause meteors are about the size of a pebble. 3 Meteoroids travel around the sun in different orbits and at different speeds. The fastest ones move at about 26 miles per second. The Earth travels at about 18 miles per second. So when meteoroids meet the Earth's atmosphere head-on, the combined speed may reach about 44 miles per second, or 264 miles per hour! 4 The Earth meets a number of clusters of tiny meteoroids at certain times every year. At these times, the sky seems filled with a shower of sparks. These clusters have orbits like comets and are believed to be pieces of comets. -
Meteoroid Stream Formation Due to the Extraction of Space Resources from Asteroids
Meteoroid Stream Formation Due to the Extraction of Space Resources from Asteroids Logan Fladeland(1), Aaron C. Boley(2), and Michael Byers(3) (1) UBC, Department of Physics and Astronomy, 6224 Agricultural Rd, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 (Canada), [email protected] (2) UBC, Department of Physics and Astronomy, 6224 Agricultural Rd, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 (Canada), [email protected] (3) UBC, Department of Political Science, 1866 Main Mall C425, Vancouver, BC V6T 1Z1 (Canada), [email protected] ABSTRACT Asteroid mining is not necessarily a distant prospect. Building on the earlier mission Hayabusa, two spacecraft (Hayabusa2 and OSIRIS-REx) have recently rendezvoused with near-Earth asteroids and will return samples to Earth. While there is significant science motivation for these missions, there are also resource interests. Space agencies and commercial entities are particularly interested in ices and water-bearing minerals that could be used to produce rocket fuel in deep space. The internationally coordinated roadmaps of major space agencies depend on utilizing the natural resources of such celestial bodies. Several companies have already created plans for intercepting and extracting water and minerals from near-Earth objects, as even a small asteroid could have high economic worth. The low surface gravity of asteroids could make the release of mining waste and the subsequent formation of debris streams a consequence of asteroid mining. Proposed strategies that would contain material during extraction could be inefficient or could still require the purposeful jettison of mining waste to avoid the need to manage unwanted mass. Since all early mining targets are expected to be near-Earth asteroids due to their orbital accessibility, these streams could be Earth-crossing and create risks for Earth and lunar satellite populations, as well as humans and equipment on the lunar surface. -
Small Bodies of the Solar System Don Yeomans
news and views teakre Small bodies of the Solar System Don Yeomans ,-.......-..-.- "_.."..._..".."....".._..I........... ".........._ "_.""".." ".......... " "............_..._.." ....".."-..- ..-.... "....""... Discoveries of comets that behave like asteroids and asteroids that behave like comets are making us reassess our view of Earth's smallest neighbours. cientists have a strong urge to place Mother Nature's objects into neat Sboxes. For most of the past halfcentury, the comets and asteroids of the Solar System did seem to belong in two separate popula- tions -each within their own box. The rules werethatcomets,withawiderangeoforbits, were solid, dirty iceballs originating in the so-called Oort cloud at theedge of the Solar System. Asteroids were definedas bitsofrock anfimed mostly to a region between Mars and Jupiter and travelling roughly in the same plane and inthe same direction as the planets about theSun (Fig. 1).Fromtjme to Lime over the past 50 years, objects were bund that did not really belong in either )OX, but they were onlyconsidered as occa- iional exceptions to the rules. Within the Figure 1 The usual view of corneta and utcroida. The inna Soh System cuntlinr the Sun and the ,ast few years, however,Mother Nature has four terreatrid planar:Mercury, Venu%Euth and Ma.fie lump of mdc that make up thenuin ticked over the boxes entirely, spilling the asteroid bdt between him and Jupiterorbit the Sun in the meplane andthe medirection PJ the :ontents and demanding thatscientists rec- planets. Most tometa have highly dlipticnl orbits, whichmeans they spend most of their timein the )gnizE crossover objects - asteroids that outer reache of the Solar System with only briefpasages dose to the Sun. -
Meteor Shower Detection with Density-Based Clustering
Meteor Shower Detection with Density-Based Clustering Glenn Sugar1*, Althea Moorhead2, Peter Brown3, and William Cooke2 1Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305 2NASA Meteoroid Environment Office, Marshall Space Flight Center, Huntsville, AL, 35812 3Department of Physics and Astronomy, The University of Western Ontario, London N6A3K7, Canada *Corresponding author, E-mail: [email protected] Abstract We present a new method to detect meteor showers using the Density-Based Spatial Clustering of Applications with Noise algorithm (DBSCAN; Ester et al. 1996). DBSCAN is a modern cluster detection algorithm that is well suited to the problem of extracting meteor showers from all-sky camera data because of its ability to efficiently extract clusters of different shapes and sizes from large datasets. We apply this shower detection algorithm on a dataset that contains 25,885 meteor trajectories and orbits obtained from the NASA All-Sky Fireball Network and the Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN). Using a distance metric based on solar longitude, geocentric velocity, and Sun-centered ecliptic radiant, we find 25 strong cluster detections and 6 weak detections in the data, all of which are good matches to known showers. We include measurement errors in our analysis to quantify the reliability of cluster occurrence and the probability that each meteor belongs to a given cluster. We validate our method through false positive/negative analysis and with a comparison to an established shower detection algorithm. 1. Introduction A meteor shower and its stream is implicitly defined to be a group of meteoroids moving in similar orbits sharing a common parentage. -
The Comet's Tale
THE COMET’S TALE Journal of the Comet Section of the British Astronomical Association Number 33, 2014 January Not the Comet of the Century 2013 R1 (Lovejoy) imaged by Damian Peach on 2013 December 24 using 106mm F5. STL-11k. LRGB. L: 7x2mins. RGB: 1x2mins. Today’s images of bright binocular comets rival drawings of Great Comets of the nineteenth century. Rather predictably the expected comet of the century Contents failed to materialise, however several of the other comets mentioned in the last issue, together with the Comet Section contacts 2 additional surprise shown above, put on good From the Director 2 appearances. 2011 L4 (PanSTARRS), 2012 F6 From the Secretary 3 (Lemmon), 2012 S1 (ISON) and 2013 R1 (Lovejoy) all Tales from the past 5 th became brighter than 6 magnitude and 2P/Encke, 2012 RAS meeting report 6 K5 (LINEAR), 2012 L2 (LINEAR), 2012 T5 (Bressi), Comet Section meeting report 9 2012 V2 (LINEAR), 2012 X1 (LINEAR), and 2013 V3 SPA meeting - Rob McNaught 13 (Nevski) were all binocular objects. Whether 2014 will Professional tales 14 bring such riches remains to be seen, but three comets The Legacy of Comet Hunters 16 are predicted to come within binocular range and we Project Alcock update 21 can hope for some new discoveries. We should get Review of observations 23 some spectacular close-up images of 67P/Churyumov- Prospects for 2014 44 Gerasimenko from the Rosetta spacecraft. BAA COMET SECTION NEWSLETTER 2 THE COMET’S TALE Comet Section contacts Director: Jonathan Shanklin, 11 City Road, CAMBRIDGE. CB1 1DP England. Phone: (+44) (0)1223 571250 (H) or (+44) (0)1223 221482 (W) Fax: (+44) (0)1223 221279 (W) E-Mail: [email protected] or [email protected] WWW page : http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~jds/ Assistant Director (Observations): Guy Hurst, 16 Westminster Close, Kempshott Rise, BASINGSTOKE, Hampshire. -
Meteor Showers # 11.Pptx
20-05-31 Meteor Showers Adolf Vollmy Sources of Meteors • Comets • Asteroids • Reentering debris C/2019 Y4 Atlas Brett Hardy 1 20-05-31 Terminology • Meteoroid • Meteor • Meteorite • Fireball • Bolide • Sporadic • Meteor Shower • Meteor Storm Meteors in Our Atmosphere • Mesosphere • Atmospheric heating • Radiant • Zenithal Hourly Rate (ZHR) 2 20-05-31 Equipment Lounge chair Blanket or sleeping bag Hot beverage Bug repellant - ThermaCELL Camera & tripod Tracking Viewing Considerations • Preparation ! Locate constellation ! Take a nap and set alarm ! Practice photography • Location: dark & unobstructed • Time: midnight to dawn https://earthsky.org/astronomy- essentials/earthskys-meteor-shower- guide https://www.amsmeteors.org/meteor- showers/meteor-shower-calendar/ • Where to look: 50° up & 45-60° from radiant • Challenges: fatigue, cold, insects, Moon • Recording observations ! Sky map, pen, red light & clipboard ! Time, position & location ! Recording device & time piece • Binoculars Getty 3 20-05-31 Meteor Showers • 112 confirmed meteor showers • 695 awaiting confirmation • Naming Convention ! C/2019 Y4 (Atlas) ! (3200) Phaethon June Tau Herculids (m) Parent body: 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann Peak: June 2 – ZHR = 3 Slow moving – 15 km/s Moon: Waning Gibbous June Bootids (m) Parent body: 7p/Pons-Winnecke Peak: June 27– ZHR = variable Slow moving – 14 km/s Moon: Waxing Crescent Perseid by Brian Colville 4 20-05-31 July Delta Aquarids Parent body: 96P/Machholz Peak: July 28 – ZHR = 20 Intermediate moving – 41 km/s Moon: Waxing Gibbous Alpha -
King David's Altar in Jerusalem Dated by the Bright Appearance of Comet
Annals of Archaeology Volume 1, Issue 1, 2018, PP 30-37 King David’s Altar in Jerusalem Dated by the Bright Appearance of Comet Encke in 964 BC Göran Henriksson Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE 751 20 Uppsala, Sweden *Corresponding Author: Göran Henriksson, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Uppsala University, Box 516, SE 751 20 Uppsala, [email protected] ABSTRACT At the time corresponding to our end of May and beginning of June in 964 BC a bright comet with a very long tail dominated the night sky of the northern hemisphere. It was Comet Encke that was very bright during the Bronze Age, but today it is scarcely visible to the naked eye. It first appeared as a small comet close to the zenith, but for every night it became greater and brighter and moved slowly to the north with its tail pointing southwards. In the first week of June the tail was stretched out across the whole sky and at midnight it was visible close to the meridian. In this paper the author wishes to test the hypothesis that this appearance of Comet Encke corresponds to the motion in the sky above Jerusalem of “the sword of the Angel of the Lord”, mentioned in 1 Chronicles, in the Old Testament. Encke was first circumpolar and finally set at the northern horizon on 8 June in 964 BC at 22. This happened according to the historical chronology between 965 and 960 BC. The calculations of the orbit of Comet Encke have been performed by a computer program developed by the author. -
Ice & Stone 2020
Ice & Stone 2020 WEEK 17: APRIL 19-25, 2020 Presented by The Earthrise Institute # 17 Authored by Alan Hale This week in history APRIL 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 APRIL 20, 1910: Comet 1P/Halley passes through perihelion at a heliocentric distance of 0.587 AU. Halley’s 1910 return, which is described in a previous “Special Topics” presentation, was quite favorable, with a close approach to Earth (0.15 AU) and the exhibiting of the longest cometary tail ever recorded. APRIL 20, 2025: NASA’s Lucy mission is scheduled to pass by the main belt asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson. Lucy is discussed in a previous “Special Topics” presentation. APRIL 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 APRIL 21, 2024: Comet 12P/Pons-Brooks is predicted to pass through perihelion at a heliocentric distance of 0.781 AU. This comet, with a discussion of its viewing prospects for 2024, is a previous “Comet of the Week.” APRIL 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 APRIL 22, 2020: The annual Lyrid meteor shower should be at its peak. Normally this shower is fairly weak, with a peak rate of not much more than 10 meteors per hour, but has been known to exhibit significantly stronger activity on occasion. The moon is at its “new” phase on April 23 this year and thus the viewing circumstances are very good. COVER IMAGE CREDIT: Front and back cover: This artist’s conception shows how families of asteroids are created. Over the history of our solar system, catastrophic collisions between asteroids located in the belt between Mars and Jupiter have formed families of objects on similar orbits around the sun. -
96P/Machholz
The age of the meteoroid complex of comet 96P/Machholz Abedin Y. Abedin Paul A. Wiegert Petr Pokorny Peter G. Brown Introduction • Associated with 8 meteor showers - QUA, ARI, SDA, NDA, KVE, Carinids, 훂-Cetids, Ursids. (Babadzhanov & Obrubov, 1992) • Previous age estimates – QUA, ARI, SDA, NDA => 2200 - 7000 years Jones & Jones (1993), Wu & Williams (1993), Neslusan et al. (2013) • Recently ARI, SDA, NDA associated with the Marsden group of comets – Ohtsuka et al. (2003), Sekanina & Chodas (2005), Jenniskens (2012) – ARI, SDA, NDA, along with Marsden group of comets, formed between 100 AD – 900 AD Our work • Simulations of stream formation. – 96P/Machholz => 20000 BC – Marsden group (P/1999 J6) => 100 AD • We find by simultaneously fitting shower profiles, radiant and orbital elements that: 1. We find that 96P contributes to all 8 showers, whereas P/1999 J6 to only 3. 2. Marsden group of comets alone can not explain the observed duration of the showers. 3. The complex is much older that previously suggested Results from simulations Showers of 96P/Machholz Showers of P/1999 J6 Meteoroid ejection 20000 BC Meteoroid ejection onset 100 AD QUA NID ARI NDA ARI SDA DLT SDA KVE TCA KVE 90 <-- 0 <-- 270 <--180 <-- 90 90 <-- 0 <-- 270 <--180 <-- 90 Southern Delta Aquariids (SDA) Age: 100 AD Parent body: Marsden group of comets (P/1999 J6) Sekanina & Chodas (2005) Ejection epoch Residuals Grey – observations Red - Simulations SDA – Continued Meteoroid Ejection onset time: 20000 BC Assumed parent body: 96P/Machholz Ejection epoch Residuals Grey – observations Red - Simulations SDA – Combined profile Marsden group (P/1999 J6) => 100 AD 96P/Machholz => 20000 BC Ejection epoch Residuals Grey – observations Red - Simulations SDA – radiant drift and position SDA Daytime Lambda Taurids Origin from comet 96P/Machholz => 20000 BC Ejection epoch Residuals Grey – observations Red - Simulations Radiant drift Daytime Lambda Taurids Radiant position DLT Cont. -
Confirmation of the Northern Delta Aquariids
WGN, the Journal of the IMO XX:X (200X) 1 Confirmation of the Northern Delta Aquariids (NDA, IAU #26) and the Northern June Aquilids (NZC, IAU #164) David Holman1 and Peter Jenniskens2 This paper resolves confusion surrounding the Northern Delta Aquariids (NDA, IAU #26). Low-light level video observations with the Cameras for All-sky Meteor Surveillance project in California show distinct showers in the months of July and August. The July shower is identified as the Northern June Aquilids (NZC, IAU #164), while the August shower matches most closely prior data on the Northern Delta Aquariids. This paper validates the existence of both showers, which can now be moved to the list of established showers. The August Beta Piscids (BPI, #342) is not a separate stream, but identical to the Northern Delta Aquariids, and should be discarded from the IAU Working List. We detected the Northern June Aquilids beginning on June 14, through its peak on July 11, and to the shower's end on August 2. The meteors move in a short-period sun grazing comet orbit. Our mean orbital elements are: q = 0:124 0:002 AU, 1=a = 0:512 0:014 AU−1, i = 37:63◦ 0:35◦, ! = 324:90◦ 0:27◦, and Ω = 107:93 0:91◦ (N = 131). This orbit is similar to that of sungrazer comet C/2009 U10. ◦ ◦ 346.4 , Decl = +1.4 , vg = 38.3 km/s, active from so- lar longitude 128.8◦ to 151.17◦. This position, however, 1 Introduction is the same as that of photographed Northern Delta Aquariids. -
ISSN 2570-4745 VOL 4 / ISSUE 5 / OCTOBER 2019 Bright Perseid With
e-Zine for meteor observers meteornews.net ISSN 2570-4745 VOL 4 / ISSUE 5 / OCTOBER 2019 Bright Perseid with fares. Canon 6D with Rokinon 24mm lens at f/2.0 on 2019 August 13, at 3h39m am EDT by Pierre Martin EDMOND Visual observations CAMS BeNeLux Radio observations UAEMM Network Fireballs 2019 – 5 eMeteorNews Contents Problems in the meteor shower definition table in case of EDMOND Masahiro Koseki ..................................................................................................................................... 265 July 2019 report CAMS BeNeLux Paul Roggemans ...................................................................................................................................... 271 August 2019 report CAMS BeNeLux Paul Roggemans ...................................................................................................................................... 273 The UAEMMN: A prominent meteor monitoring system in the Gulf Region Dr. Ilias Fernini, Aisha Alowais, Mohammed Talafha, Maryam Sharif, Yousef Eisa, Masa Alnaser, Shahab Mohammad, Akhmad Hassan, Issam Abujami, Ridwan Fernini and Salma Subhi .................... 275 Summer observations 2019 Pierre Martin........................................................................................................................................... 278 Radio meteors July 2019 Felix Verbelen ......................................................................................................................................... 289 Radio meteors August 2019