Asteroids and my after-school astronomy club
I gave my lecture about asteroids to students in my after-school astronomy club – while they munched on cheese corn and Connie’s homemade lemonade. I love introducing new people to Tunguska and Chelyabinsk!
Image: A montage of 17 of the 18 asteroids and comets that have been photographed up close as of August 2014, when Rosetta arrived at comet Churyumov-Gerasimenko. This version is in color and shows the bodies at their correct relative (though not absolute) albedo or brightness. Not included are Vesta or Ceres, both of which are many times larger than Lutetia. Montage by Emily Lakdawalla. Data from NASA / JPL / JHUAPL / UMD / JAXA / ESA / OSIRIS team / Russian Academy of Sciences / China National Space Agency. Processed by Emily Lakdawalla, Daniel Machacek, Ted Stryk, Gordan Ugarkovic.
To discuss where asteroid came from, I had to cover solar system formation, a topic they had not yet covered – they thought the Hubble images I showed of proplyds in the Orion Nebula were pretty cool!
I talked about asteroid discovery, deflection techniques and the UN AsteroidDay Event – the students knew several of the AsteroidDay signatories – which surprised and pleased me!
Jupiter appears in the southwestern sky after sunset this week – it won’t be there much longer – Jupiter will appear a bit lower with each passing day.
The Moon appears between the Pleiades star cluster and the star Aldebaran in the southeastern sky after sunset on Feb. 9th.
The Moon appears near the star Pollux in the eastern sky after sunset on Feb. 13th.
Mercury, Venus and Mars appear in the southeastern predawn sky all week.
The Big Dipper asterism in Ursa Major can be used to star-hop to several other bright stars – look for it in the western predawn sky.
- The First Quarter Moon occurs on Feb. 8th – visible high in the southern sky in early evening.
- The Full Moon occurs on Feb. 16th – rising at sunset, visible high in the sky around midnight, and visible all night.
If you click on the Moon image above, or click this link, you will go to NASA’s Moon Phase and Libration, 2022 page – it will show you what the Moon looks like right now. If you click the image on that page, you will download a high-rez TIFF image annotated with the names of prominent features – helpful for logging your lunar observations!
Moon News
The Sun has four named sunspots and a couple more plage areas rotating into view (left side of image).
Spaceweather.com says “These sunspots have relatively stable magnetic fields that pose little threat for strong solar flares.” They also said: “For days, astronomers around the world have been monitoring a colossal prominence dancing over the sun’s southeastern limb. The show is almost over. New images from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory suggest that the structure is becoming unstable and might soon erupt.”
Videos courtesy of NASA/SDO and the AIA, EVE, and HMI science teams.
You can view the Sun in near real-time, in multiple frequencies here: SDO-The Sun Now.
You can create your own time-lapse movies of the Sun here: AIA/HMI Browse Data.
You can browse all the SDO images of the Sun from 2010 to the present here: Browse SDO archive.
Amateur Solar Astrophotography
Solar Corona
Solar wind speed is 439.3 km/sec ▲ with a density of 5.4 protons/cm3 ▲ at 1431 UT.
Click here to see a near real-time animation of the corona and solar wind from the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO).
Sun News:
Time to update my Sun lecture, again!
- Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) discovered this month: 72, this year: 368 (+112), all time: 28,291 (+114)
- Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs): 2260 (+7 updated 2022-02-08)
- Total Minor Planets discovered (MPC): 1,166,165 (-85 updated 2022-02-08)
- Total Minor Planets discovered (NASA): 1,113,527 (updated 2021-08-17) – This value has not changed for months.
Upcoming Earth-asteroid encounters:
| Asteroid | Date(UT) | Miss Distance | Velocity (km/s) | Diameter (m) |
| 2022 AV4 | 2022-Feb-07 | 19.2 LD | 3.4 | 24 |
| 2022 CX | 2022-Feb-07 | 4 LD | 28.6 | 21 |
| 2022 BX4 | 2022-Feb-08 | 8.6 LD | 7.8 | 13 |
| 2007 UY1 | 2022-Feb-08 | 13.9 LD | 6.6 | 85 |
| 2022 CC1 | 2022-Feb-08 | 7.8 LD | 5.1 | 14 |
| 2022 BS4 | 2022-Feb-08 | 13.1 LD | 10.9 | 32 |
| 2022 CD1 | 2022-Feb-08 | 16 LD | 5.6 | 17 |
| 2022 CW | 2022-Feb-08 | 2.1 LD | 7.5 | 15 |
| 2022 CW1 | 2022-Feb-08 | 2.1 LD | 14.9 | 13 |
| 2022 CB1 | 2022-Feb-08 | 8.8 LD | 10.3 | 20 |
| 2022 CP1 | 2022-Feb-09 | 1.8 LD | 10.7 | 12 |
| 2022 BW6 | 2022-Feb-09 | 6.3 LD | 10.6 | 14 |
| 2022 CY2 | 2022-Feb-10 | 15.3 LD | 17.9 | 28 |
| 2022 CX1 | 2022-Feb-10 | 5.5 LD | 11.9 | 14 |
| 2022 CH1 | 2022-Feb-10 | 4.2 LD | 17.4 | 26 |
| 2022 CQ | 2022-Feb-10 | 15.9 LD | 16 | 23 |
| 2022 CN2 | 2022-Feb-10 | 8.2 LD | 16.3 | 13 |
| 2022 CZ | 2022-Feb-11 | 6.7 LD | 15.4 | 21 |
| 2022 BN4 | 2022-Feb-12 | 18.1 LD | 8.1 | 25 |
| 2022 BP6 | 2022-Feb-13 | 11.5 LD | 4.6 | 13 |
| 2020 DF | 2022-Feb-14 | 12 LD | 8.6 | 20 |
| 2022 CF1 | 2022-Feb-14 | 12.6 LD | 6.8 | 17 |
| 2022 BF6 | 2022-Feb-15 | 9.4 LD | 17.2 | 36 |
| 2018 CW2 | 2022-Feb-18 | 2.2 LD | 10.8 | 25 |
| 2020 CX1 | 2022-Feb-18 | 7.2 LD | 8.2 | 54 |
| 2022 BH7 | 2022-Feb-18 | 6 LD | 22.7 | 229 |
| 2022 CC2 | 2022-Feb-22 | 11.9 LD | 11.6 | 44 |
| 455176 | 2022-Feb-22 | 14 LD | 25.1 | 257 |
| 2022 BA6 | 2022-Feb-22 | 8 LD | 2.7 | 19 |
| 2022 BS6 | 2022-Feb-23 | 13.6 LD | 12.1 | 44 |
| 2017 CX1 | 2022-Feb-23 | 15.2 LD | 5 | 8 |
| 2016 QJ44 | 2022-Feb-24 | 19.6 LD | 8.5 | 319 |
| 2021 QO2 | 2022-Feb-25 | 20 LD | 11 | 65 |
| 2020 UO4 | 2022-Feb-28 | 18.5 LD | 2.1 | 7 |
| 138971 | 2022-Mar-04 | 12.8 LD | 12 | 742 |
| 2021 UL7 | 2022-Mar-04 | 11.5 LD | 2 | 25 |
| 2020 DC | 2022-Mar-06 | 3.9 LD | 4.9 | 16 |
| 2021 EY1 | 2022-Mar-10 | 10.1 LD | 15.5 | 16 |
| 2015 DR215 | 2022-Mar-11 | 17.5 LD | 8.3 | 290 |
| 2018 GY | 2022-Mar-13 | 11.9 LD | 10.7 | 43 |
| 2022 BX1 | 2022-Mar-13 | 20.1 LD | 11 | 161 |
| 2016 FZ12 | 2022-Mar-19 | 2.2 LD | 8.3 | 16 |
| 2020 SQ | 2022-Mar-21 | 2.8 LD | 6 | 12 |
| 2013 BO76 | 2022-Mar-24 | 13.3 LD | 13.8 | 271 |
| 2011 GE3 | 2022-Mar-26 | 7.6 LD | 7 | 22 |
| 2012 FX35 | 2022-Mar-26 | 13.7 LD | 5.9 | 25 |
| 2010 GD35 | 2022-Mar-29 | 17.7 LD | 12.5 | 43 |
| 2020 FW5 | 2022-Mar-30 | 8.9 LD | 13.1 | 27 |
| 2007 FF1 | 2022-Apr-01 | 19.4 LD | 12.8 | 155 |
| 2021 GN1 | 2022-Apr-02 | 14.4 LD | 14.3 | 19 |
| 2016 GW221 | 2022-Apr-02 | 9.8 LD | 5.9 | 41 |
| 2012 TV | 2022-Apr-05 | 19.2 LD | 18.1 | 32 |
Asteroid News:
On February 7, 2022, the NASA All Sky Fireball Network reported 8 fireballs!
(8 sporadics)
Fireball News:
Slow fireball over Austin, Tx on Jan. 29th!
If you see a bright meteor or a fireball, please REPORT IT to the American Meteor Society and the International Meteor Organization!
Position of the planets & several spacecraft in the inner solar system on February 8th – I noticed that the DART mission is a new addition in NASA’s Eyes app.
I time accelerated the Eyes app to see where DART was going, and was surprised to see Europa Clipper mission pop out of the Earth! So I followed Europa Clipper to Jupiter – I had no idea it was doing so many gravity assists by Ganymede!
The final orbit of the Europa Clipper has its periapsis where it can encounter Europa on practically every orbit – just astounding!
Position of the planets in the middle solar system:
Position of the planets in the outer solar system:
Solar System News
See a list of current NASA missions here: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/missions?mission_status=current
ex·o·plan·et /ˈeksōˌplanət/, noun: a planet orbiting a star other than the Sun.
* Confirmed Planets Discovered by TESS refers to the number planets that have been published in the refereed astronomical literature.
* TESS Project Candidates refers to the total number of transit-like events that appear to be astrophysical in origin, including false positives as identified by the TESS Project.
* TESS Project Candidates Yet To Be Confirmed refers to the number of TESS Project Candidates that have not yet been dispositioned as a Confirmed Planet or False Positive.
Exoplanet News:
February 3, 2022: 6 Planets Added
We’ve added six planets this week, bringing the total number of planets in the archive to 4,914. Only 86 discoveries to go before we reach the next milestone of 5,000 planets!
The new planets are TOI-1064 b & c, TOI-2184 b, HD 22532 b, HD 64121 b, and HD 69123 b.
Access all of these new data from the Planetary Systems Table and its companion table, Planetary Systems Composite Parameters, which offers a more complete table of planet parameters combined from multiple references and calculations. – NASA
SpaceWeather.com Realtime Aurora Gallery: https://spaceweathergallery.com/aurora_gallery.html
Latest Aurora Oval Forecast
- Visit an International Dark Sky Park: https://www.darksky.org/our-work/conservation/idsp/parks/
- If you live in Michigan, visit the Michigan Dark Skies site: https://sites.lsa.umich.edu/darkskies/
STEM
Messier Tour: M4
M4 was discovered in 1746 by the Swiss astronomer Jean-Philippe Loys de Chéseaux. Home to more than 100,000 stars, the cluster is predicted to contain up to 40,000 white dwarfs — the cores of ancient, dead stars whose outer layers have drifted away into space. As white dwarfs age, they grow cooler, fainter, and more difficult to detect. Therefore, a globular cluster’s age can be inferred from the age of its faintest white dwarf. Because the stars in these clusters are some of the oldest in the universe, up to 13 billion years old, astronomers are able to use them to estimate the age of the universe. – NASA
Messier 4 is one of the easiest clusters to find in the night sky and can be seen even in small telescopes. It lies only 1.3 degrees west of Antares, the brightest star in Scorpius constellation and the 17th brightest star in the sky. Observers can see both the red supergiant star and the cluster in a wide field telescope.
The best time of year to observe M4 from northern latitudes is in the summer months, when Scorpius is visible above the southern horizon in the evening. From southern latitudes, Scorpius is best seen during the months of May, June and July, when it rises high in the sky. – messier-objects.com
Cover Image: Globular Cluster M4. Credit: ESO Imaging Survey
Messier Object List: [Link]
Software Apps used for this post:
NASA Eyes on the Solar System: an immersive 3D solar system and space mission simulator – free for the PC /MAC.
Stellarium: a free web-based planetarium app. It’s a great tool for planning observing sessions.
SpaceEngine – Explore the universe in 3D and VR!
Worldwide Telescope – operated by the American Astronomical Society (AAS).
