Travelers In The Night

370E-403-Double Comet

In November of 2006, University of Arizona's Spacewatch astronomers on Kitt Peak discovered a faint moving point of light in the night sky which appeared to be a garden variety main belt asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. The Minor Planet Center calculated it's orbit and gave it the name 2006 VW139. Five years later when it again moved closest to the Sun the Pan-STARRS group in Hawaii discovered that 2006 VW139 is surrounded by a gas cloud like a comet and it was given a comet designation, 288P. My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Steve Larson is a member of the team of astronomers who use the Hubble Space Telescope to observe asteroids which have comet like burps. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope between August 2016 and January 2017 clearly show 288P to be two similar, mile diameter, asteroids orbiting each other about 60 miles apart, surrounded by a gas cloud, as they move about the Sun. The Hubble team estimates that about 5,000 years ago this strange object was formed when a rapidly rotating comet nucleus came apart into two large pieces. It's gas cloud is likely to come from volatile ices like carbon dioxide and water vapor which were liberated by solar heating. Objects like this one are very interesting since they may have had a role in bringing water to a bone dry Earth in the early days of our solar system.

882-David’s Goliath PHA

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was asteroid hunting in the evening twilight with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon Arizona when he spotted an unknown object in the constellation of Lyra. The largest telescopes on Earth will likely track David's discovery until it becomes too faint to observe in 2027 and catch it again when it again becomes bright enough to track in 2050. Fortunately it is extremely unlikely that it will strike Earth when it again comes close to our home planet in 2052.

369E-401-Night Vision

Many people in our modern world rarely if ever experience night vision. To achieve this interesting state of sensory awareness you cannot look at your cell phone or any other source of bright light for 30 to 45 minutes. Your night vision comes about over time because the rod sensors in the retina of your eye undergo a chemical change when they are placed in total darkness. The process starts immediately but takes 20 to 30 minutes to get 80% of maximum sensitivity. The night vision process can be reversed in seconds by exposure to a bright light. In it's most sensitive state your eye can function with a billion times less light than is present in strong sunlight enabling you to see a candle flame from 1.6 miles away.

881-Dangerous Comets

It is possible the object creating the Tunguska event in Russia 1908 which knocked down 80 million trees over an area about twice the size of New York City was a fragment of a comet or asteroid. The International Asteroid Warning Network 2025 campaign to track Comet 3L/Atlas prepares the worlds observatories for the eventual time when a comet fragment has our number on it.

368E-400-Roving Venus

Venus and Earth are similar in size, composition, density, and mass. Unfortunately, our sister planet Venus is an example of a place where green house gases have created an extreme situation. Venus's thick carbon dioxide atmosphere has a surface pressure 90 times that of Earth. It would crush a submarine. Additionally, the thick atmospheric blanket holds in the heat causing Venus's surface temperature to be 864 F, hot enough to melt lead.