The University Of Auckland steps into Space
About the size of a loaf of bread it's now whizzing around the globe 500Km up - 15 times a day.
The satellite will be available for staff and students to use in their projects.
Dr Ben Taylor is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Auckland's Space Institute
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University Of Auckland
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Since the day of the collision, data from ground-based telescopes has revealed that the DART spacecraft did alter Dimorphos' orbital period - or how long it takes to make a single revolution around Didymos - by about 32 or 33 minutes. And scientists have continued to observe additional changes to the pair, including how the direct hit likely deformed Dimorphos due to the asteroid's composition. Similarly, if YR4 strikes the moon and doesn't result in damaging effects for satellites, it could create a tremendous opportunity for researchers to learn how the lunar surface responds to impacts, Wiegert said. But whether it would make sense to send a DART-like mission to knock YR4 off a collision course with the moon remains to be seen. It would depend on future risk assessments by planetary defence groups when the asteroid came back into view around 2028, de Wit said. Though defence plans for a potential moon impact still aren't clear, YR4's journey underscores the importance - and the challenges - of tracking objects that are often impossible to see. YR4 was detected by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System, or ATLAS telescope, in Río Hurtado, Chile, two days after the asteroid had already made its closest pass by Earth, hidden by the bright glare of the sun as it approached our planet. The same thing occurred when an asteroid measuring roughly 20 metres across hit the atmosphere and exploded above Chelyabinsk, Russia, on February 15, 2013, damaging thousands of buildings, according to the European Space Agency. While no one died, about 1,500 people were injured when the windows in homes and businesses blew out due to the shock wave. A vapor cloud trail left by the Chelyabinsk asteroid. Photo: M. Ahmetvaleev/ESA via CNN Newsource Trying to observe asteroids was challenging for many reasons, Rivkin said. 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But upcoming telescopes - including NASA's NEO Surveyor expected to launch by the end of 2027 and the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Mission in the InfraRed, or NEOMIR satellite, set for liftoff in the early 2030s - could shrink that blind spot, helping researchers detect asteroids much closer to the sun. "NEOMIR would have detected asteroid 2024 YR4 about a month earlier than ground-based telescopes did," head of ESA's Planetary Defence Office Richard Moissl said in a statement. "This would have given astronomers more time to study the asteroid's trajectory and allowed them to much sooner rule out any chance of Earth impact in 2032." ESA's NEOMIR mission could spot previously unknown asteroids. Photo: Pierre Carril/ESA via CNN Newsource NASA and other space agencies are constantly on the lookout for potentially hazardous asteroids, defined as such based on their distance from Earth and ability to cause significant damage should an impact occur. Asteroids that can't get any closer to our planet than one-twentieth of Earth's distance from the sun are not considered to be potentially hazardous asteroids, according to NASA. When the new Vera C. Rubin Observatory, located in the Andes in Chile, released its first stunning images of the cosmos in June, researchers revealed the discovery of more than 2,100 previously unknown asteroids after seven nights of observations. Of those newly detected space rocks, seven were near-Earth objects. A near-Earth object is an asteroid or comet on an orbit that brings it within about 190 million kilometres of the sun, which means it has the potential to pass near Earth, according to NASA. None of the new ones detected by Rubin were determined to pose a threat to our planet. Rubin would act as a great asteroid hunter, de Wit said, while telescopes such as Webb could be a tracker that follow up on Rubin's discoveries. A proposal by Rivkin and de Wit to use Webb to observe YR4 in the spring of 2026 has just been approved. Webb is the only telescope with a chance of glimpsing the asteroid before 2028. "This newly approved programme will buy decision makers two extra years to prepare - though most likely to relax, as there is an 80 percent chance of ruling out impact - while providing key experience-based lessons for handling future potential impactors to be discovered by Vera Rubin," de Wit said. And because of the twists and turns of YR4's tale thus far, asteroids that have potential to affect the moon could become objects of even more intense study in the future. "If this really is a thing that we only have to worry about every 5,000 years or something, then maybe that's less pressing," Rivkin said. "But even just asking what would we do if we did see something that was going to hit the moon is at least something that we can now start thinking about." - CNN
