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Belfast Telegraph
6 days ago
- General
- Belfast Telegraph
New facility to detect millions of new solar system objects, say NI-led astronomers
The brand new facility at NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will revolutionise the world's knowledge of the solar system's 'small bodies': asteroids, comets and other minor planets. At the heart of the Rubin Observatory is the fastest moving telescope equipped with the world's largest digital camera. A single image from the telescope covers a patch of sky roughly 45 times the area of the full moon. This 'wide-fast-deep' system will spend the next ten years observing the night sky to produce the Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). Astronomers say the system will provide unprecedented time-lapse footage of the cosmos and a powerful dataset with which to map the solar system. New open-source software has also been created to predict what discoveries are likely to be made, with a series of papers describing the software soon to be published by The Astronomical Journal. The group of astronomers has been led by Dr Meg Schwamb of Queen's University Belfast's School of Mathematics and Physics. Dr Schwamb said the world's knowledge of what objects fill the Earth's solar system 'is about to expand exponentially and rapidly'. QUB PhD student Joe Murtagh is one of the lead authors of the prediction studies and among those whose papers have been submitted to the Astronomical Journal. He said: 'It's very exciting – we expect that millions of new solar system objects will be detected and most of these will be picked up in the first few years of sky survey.' "With the LSST catalogue of solar system objects, our work shows that it will be like going from black-and-white television to brilliant colour.' Beyond just finding these new small bodies, Rubin Observatory will observe them multiple times in different optical filters, revealing their surface colours. Past solar system surveys, typically observed only in a single filter. To forecast which small bodies will be discovered, the team built Sorcha, the first end-to-end simulator that ingests Rubin's planned observing schedule. It applies assumptions on how Rubin Observatory observes and detects astronomical sources in its images with the best model of what the solar system and its small body reservoirs look like today. The team's simulations show that Rubin will map 127,000 near-Earth objects such as asteroids and comets whose orbits cross or approach the planet. It will also study over five million main-belt asteroids and 109,000 Jupiter Trojans, bodies which share Jupiter's orbit at stable 'Lagrange' points. Some 37,000 trans-Neptunian objects, which are residents of the distant Kuiper Belt, will also be mapped, along with around 1,500 to 2,000 Centaurs. The Sorcha code is open-source and freely available with the simulated catalogues, animations, and pre-prints of the papers publicly available at News Catch Up - Tuesday 3 June By making these resources available, the Sorcha team has enabled researchers worldwide to refine their tools and be ready for the flood of LSST data that Rubin will generate, advancing the understanding of the small bodies that illuminate the solar system like never before. Rubin Observatory is scheduled to unveil its first spectacular imagery at its 'First Look' event on June 23, offering the world an early glimpse of the survey's power. Full science operations are slated to begin later this year.
Time of India
21-04-2025
- Science
- Time of India
Close shave for NASA's Lucy as spacecraft successfully fly past asteroid Donaldjohanson
The Lucy spacecraft of NASA successfully flew by asteroid (52246) Donaldjohanson . The main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter housed a tiny asteroid. At 1.51 pm EDT on Sunday, April 20, the nearest approach took place. At about 48,000 km/hour, Lucy flew nearly 960 km past the asteroid. Roughly four kilometres in diameter, the asteroid appears to be carbon-rich. It was likely chipped off a larger parent body around 150 million years ago. It rotates every 251 hours and periodically brightens and dims every 10 days. This suggests that the asteroid has an elongated shape. According to the Forbes report, the flyby is part of Lucy's 12-year mission to explore 11 different asteroids, including eight Jupiter Trojans . These primitive celestial bodies are considered to be remnants from the early solar system . by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like Wife won't let go of dog, husband finds out why and calls police - watch! Happy in Shape Undo Luci shuns to secure its instruments Reportedly, during the brief but critical encounter, Lucy stopped tracking the asteroid 40 seconds before its closest approach to protect its sensitive instruments from intense sunlight. Despite this, the spacecraft successfully re-established contact with Earth shortly after. NASA, according to the Forbes report, confirmed that Lucy is in good health. The spacecraft is now transmitting the collected data back to Earth. This process is expected to take around a week. The flyby, as per the report, was a crucial test run ahead of more complex encounters with Jupiter Trojan asteroids . Live Events Also Read : Shannon Sharpe faces $50m lawsuit as NFL legend sued for rape, sexual battery Warm-up targets prove fascinating As per the media reports, this is Lucy's second asteroid encounter since it was launched on October 16, 2021. In November 2023, it imaged its first asteroid target, Dinkinesh and discovered a surprise—a small satellite asteroid orbiting it, later named Selam. According to the reports, Dr Tim Hal Levison, principal investigator for Lucy, described Donaldjohanson as a 'peculiar' young object. It is providing 'unexpected' knowledge through these early encounters even before Lucy reaches its primary targets, he was further quoted as saying. What's next for Lucy? During its six orbits around the Sun, Lucy will perform multiple gravity-assist flybys of Earth. Reportedly, the next major encounter will involve the asteroid Eurybates and its moon Queta on August 12, 2027, followed by further Trojan flybys until 2033, the reports stated. Although Lucy will pass by the Earth in orbit a number of times, it will never return to Earth. It will be in the Trojans and Earth's orbit for millions of years, it added. As per the reports, Lucy bears a time capsule that includes notes of scientific and cultural icons, such as Albert Einstein, Martin Luther King Jr., Carl Sagan, and the Beatles. Lucy spacecraft: Background Lucy is named after the finding of a fossilised hominid skeleton found in Ethiopia in 1974. The asteroid Donaldjohanson was named in honour of Dr Donald Johanson, the paleoanthropologist who found the Lucy fossil. NASA is hoping the probe will give insight into the development of the solar system, just as the first Lucy provided important information on human origins. Also Read : Kristen Stewart is married! Twilight star celebrates intimate wedding with longtime partner Dylan Meyer in Los Angeles FAQs What is the significance of the asteroid Donaldjohanson? Donaldjohanson is a carbonaceous asteroid that probably fragmented from a larger body 150 million years ago. It is a test target before Lucy's main mission to investigate Trojan asteroids. When will Lucy travel to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids? Lucy's maiden encounter with the Jupiter Trojan asteroids is in August 2027, starting with Eurybates and its moon Queta.
