Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Vivian Carjaval was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Ursa Minor with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow when she discovered, 2024 BR4, a two football field diameter Earth approaching asteroid.Vivian’s Apollo asteroid discovery poses no threat to humans since 2024 is as close as it will come to Eart…

During a recent 3 night observing run my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Rose Matheny discovered 4 asteroids which can come to less than one half the Moon's distance from us. Interestingly one of them passed about 25,000 miles over the South Pole 2 days after Rose discovered it. Rose's four close approaching asteroids are small ranging in size from 15…

Perhaps the most dangerous Amor asteroid is 2006 HZ51 .It was discovered by my team the Catalina Sky Survey. Fortunately the closest 2006 HZ51 will come to our home planet is June 11 of 2116 when it will pass us harmlessly 26 times the distance to our moon away from us.By Albert D. Grauer

Recently in the space of 28 hours my Catalina Sky Survey teammates Rose Matheny and Carson Fuls discovered two Potentially Hazardous Asteroids to add to the list of the more than 1700 which asteroid hunters have discovered. Fortunately, none of the Potentially Hazardous Asteroids are currently on a collision course with planet Earth.…

P/1999 J6 (SOHO) was discovered 10 May 1995 by Mike Oates as part of the Citizen Science Sun Grazer Project in which volunteers from all over the world have the chance to discover a comet in images taken by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory or SOHO for short.RADAR studies of the daytime Arietid ( AIR-ee-uh-tids) meteor shower stream which peak…

More than 240 Lunar meteorites have been found in the Dhofar region of Oman, on the LaPaz Icefield of Antartica, and other locations on the Earth's surface. These space traveling rocks were blasted from the Moon's surface by the impact of asteroids and comets which accelerated them to speeds greater than the lunar escape velocity of 1.5 miles per s…

It all started when Krisztián Sárneczky at the Konkoly Observatory near Budapest, Hungary reported the position and brightness of an unknown asteroid rapidly moving through the constellation of Lynx. Three hours later , the object, now called 2024 BX1 exploded harmlessly in our atmosphereBy Albert D. Grauer

Comets are made up of organic materials and ices of various substance which are left over from the formation of our solar system 4.6 billion years ago. When the gravity of a nearby star or other object changes one of these dirty snowball's orbit, its path can bring it into the inner solar system and thus near enough for the Sun to affect it and for…

My new Catalina Sky Survey Teammate Vivian Carjaval was scheduled for three 13h long winter nights for her first solo observing run on our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona. As luck would have it she couldn’t observe the first night because of high winds and blowing snow, while on the second night she was treated to lots of clouds under a b…

Anyone who thinks women can't do computers and science needs to meet my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Rose Matheny. On a recent 3 night observing run at the 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Rose took over the world of asteroid hunting when she posted 82 new potentially Earth approaching objects on the Minor Planet Center's NEO Confirmation Page. For…

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Josh Hogan was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Taurus with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when he came across a very curious object. It has an orbit like an ordinary main belt asteroid. However, amazingly it has a tail extending some 19,000 miles out from a few mile diameter central object.…

I knew from the short regularly space streaks on the four images I had just obtained with the Catalina Sky Survey's 60 inch on Mount Lemmon, Arizona, I was looking at the path of an Earth approaching object. Turns out, this previously unknown object, is an unusual Aten astrtoid in that its orbit is inclined 38 degrees to the path of the Earth aroun…

In 1924 the Aldo Leopold Wilderness in southwestern New Mexico became the first designated wilderness and is an island from which to view the natural night sky. Today, because of inappropriate night lighting, the vast majority of children will never see the Milky Way, a meteor streaking across the sky, or have the opportunity to walk around at nigh…

C/2016 Q4 (Kowalski) is my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski's 14th comet discovery. It orbits the Sun once every 68 years on a cold path between Saturn and Neptune.By Albert D. Grauer

In 2024, Voyager I is 163 times further from the Sun than we are and is the most distant, human made, traveler in the night.By Albert D. Grauer

In the southwest, the life giving monsoon rains occur in July and August, divide the observing year into two halves, and give asteroid hunters a chance to do major equipment maintenance and upgrades. My Catalina Sky Survey teammates Richard Kowalski and Rose Matheny started the new observing season after the monsoon weather began to taper off using…

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Alex Gibbs discovered his 31st comet while asteroid hunting in Leo with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona. It orbits the Sun once every 6 years on a path between Mars and Jupiter. Comet P/2023/Y1 (Gibbs) is one on the 600 plus known members of the Jupiter family of comets.…

Astronomers at the European Southern Observatory in Chile have discovered a rocky Earth like planet orbiting Proxima Centauri, the star nearest to our Sun. The planet named Proxima b is about 1.3 times more massive than Earth, orbits it's dim red star every 11 days, and may always keep the same side towards it's sun. Attention grabbing is the fact …

Unlike other space missions which are conducted out in the open the asteroid mining company AstroForge’s first mission to a potentially valuable nearby rocky M type asteroid is being planned in secret so that some other company doesn’t have the chance to grab it before they do.By Albert D. Grauer

In 2015 the Earth was struck by at least 43 meteoroids which created bright fireballs. Their arrival does not seem to be correlated with the position of the Earth in it's orbit about the Sun.Overall a given piece of ground on Mars is several times more likely to be hit by a space rock than is a similar sized area on Earth.…

So far asteroid hunters have discovered approximately half of the 5,000 PHAs which are likely to exist. Asteroid hunters will continue to search the sky to discover dangerous asteroids 50 years before impact so that humans can either deflect or pulverize them.By Albert D. Grauer

A faint shooting star or meteor streaking across the sky is produced when a tiny bit of rock or dust enters the Earth's atmosphere and burns up some 60 miles above us. NASA scientist Dr. Marc Fries and his collaborators have used Doppler Weather Radar to track twenty meteor's dark trails through the sky. In the past year or so they have used this t…

Centaurs have long puzzled astronomers since they have traits in common with both asteroids and comets.By Albert D. Grauer

The history of our spot in the Universe is written in the composition of meteorites and other samples of materials we have obtained from space. Even the smallest speck has a story to tell.By Albert D. Grauer

In the past two decades astronomers have discovered that galaxies are not randomly distributed in space but rather occur along filaments of mass with huge empty voids between them. How objects and structures in the early Universe became nearby clusters of galaxies and third generation stars like our Sun is an evolving picture we are beginning to un…