Latest news with #MarcusScott
ABC News
3 days ago
- General
- ABC News
Meet the NASA scientist tasked with identifying asteroids on a collision course with Earth
The bright green meteor that blazed a trail over the skies of southern WA earlier this month served as a spectacular reminder of just how vulnerable the Earth is to threats from space. Country police officer and amateur meteorite hunter Marcus Scott found a tennis ball sized piece of the space rock, dubbed the Mother's Day meteorite, in a salt lake about 460 kilometres east of Perth. Hollywood has taught us to fear giant 'planet killer' asteroids, but it's the smaller space rocks that could destroy an entire city. Thankfully, a NASA scientist is on the case, with the job of protecting the planet against such threats. Dr Kelly Fast oversees NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office, which is responsible for identifying and tracking asteroids, and figuring out if any of these rocky bodies could be on a collision course with Earth. Larger meteors can survive the trip through the atmosphere, often in spectacular fashion, like the Mother's Day meteorite which was estimated to be about half a metre in size. It slammed into the atmosphere above WA travelling at about 15 kilometres a second, before breaking up and landing in a salt lake in the Goldfields. Dr Fast and her colleagues around the world track more than 37,000 near-Earth asteroids, with the US Congress expecting NASA to find 90 per cent of asteroids larger than 140 metres. It's the smaller asteroids that pose the danger because they are harder to find, but could still destroy a land mass the size of an Australian city or even a state. "The asteroid hazard is a global issue. The first order of business is finding asteroids… it's the only natural disaster that you could potentially prevent," she said. Last year an asteroid named 2024 YR4 was discovered, with initial calculations indicating it could come dangerously close to Earth in just seven years' time. With a diameter of approximately 50 metres, if it struck the earth it could cause widespread devastation of a similar scale to the Tunguska event in Siberia in 1908. That explosion occurred over a sparsely populated area, flattening more than 2,000 square kilometres of forest. Dr Fast said there were a few different forms of technology that could potentially be used to neutralise the threat from an asteroid, and they all sound like they are straight out of a science fiction movie. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft slammed into the asteroid Dimorphous in September 2022, successfully changing the orbit of the 160-metre diameter celestial body. "That was the simplest technique — to impact an asteroid and change its speed, and it was successfully tested with DART," Dr Fast said. To date, it's been the only real world test to save the planet from destruction caused by a rogue space rock. Other techniques being studied include ion beam deflection, using a spacecraft to fire charged particles at the asteroid, giving it a slight nudge to change its orbit. The 'Star Trek' sounding "gravity tractor" is another possible solution, and entails parking an object next to the asteroid and using the slight change in gravity to change its orbit. "And then there's what we always like to call the Hollywood option, because it's what's always used in the movies — a nuclear deflection," Dr Fast said. Although she warned such a technique could create even more of a hazard from the debris field of an exploded asteroid. Dr Fast is hoping there won't be a need to use any of these techniques in our lifetime, but says developing the technology to protect the planet will be a gift for future generations. This week Dr Fast spoke at the Australian Space Awards in Sydney, where she emphasised Australia's importance in keeping the planet safe from the threat of asteroids. And while Australia might be half a world away from NASA headquarters in Washington D.C., two teams of Australian researchers form part of the International Asteroid Warning Network. The University of New South Wales Canberra team search for asteroids using optical telescopes as well as the Parkes Radio Telescope, famous for its role in broadcasting Neil Armstrong's moon walk. On the other side of the country, researchers at the University of Western Australia use the one-metre diameter Zadko Telescope, located about 70 kilometres north of Perth in Gingin, to scan the skies for threats from space. Hollywood-born Dr Fast has a degree in astrophysics and a doctorate in astronomy. She also has the honour of having a nearly three-kilometre diameter space rock named after her, Asteroid Kellyfast. "Like pretty much all asteroids that are named for people, let's hope it stays safely out in the main belt [of space]" she said with a laugh.
West Australian
19-05-2025
- Science
- West Australian
Ravensthorpe police officers finds Mother's Day meteor 460km east of Perth in Goldfields salt lake
The meteor that lit up the skies over Western Australia in the early hours of Mother's Day has been located in the Goldfields by an amateur meteorite searcher and police officer. The meteor — dubbed the Mother's Day meteor — flew through the skies on May 11, just before sunrise, catching eyes with bursts of orange and green light. Reports of the object spanned much of the State, with the brightest reports and vision from the Wheatbelt and Goldfields regions. Six days later, the meteorite was found in the Goldfields south of the Breakaways, 460km east of Perth. It was found thanks to calculations from the Desert Fireball Network — a group of meteorite researchers from Curtin University — and the willpower of Ravensthorpe police officer Marcus Scott who reached it first on foot as the researchers separately flew overhead. Mr Scott drove two hours to the potential site after seeing media reports of the meteor and seeing the estimated landing area. His search lasted nearly four hours after trudging through dense bushland, and it wasn't until he had just turned back to beat nightfall that he struck gold. Mr Scott said he had been looking for meteorites for the past three years, and while he has found many in the past, none were quite as exciting as this one. 'It was good, I mean there was no dancing or anything but certainly I was aware of its importance,' he said. 'I'm aware that not a lot of people get to find what are referred to as falls, meteorites that have been witnessed when they're coming in. 'I was aware of its importance and I'm happy to find a bit.' The fact it was in a salt lake made the search easier as looking for an indent in the surface was a telltale sign, Mr Scott said. 'The fireball scientists put their estimate of where it was, I noted that most of it went through salt lake country which makes finding meteorites quite easy,' he said. 'Getting there was a struggle, very overgrown bush but once you're out on the salt lakes it makes it a bit easier when you're looking for something that's punched a hole in the salt lake crust.' The meteorite is expected to be collected for study so researchers can classify it and find out where it came from'
Perth Now
19-05-2025
- Science
- Perth Now
Excitement as WA Police officer finds Mother's Day meteor
The meteor that lit up the skies over Western Australia in the early hours of Mother's Day has been located in the Goldfields by an amateur meteorite searcher and police officer. The meteor — dubbed the Mother's Day meteor — flew through the skies on May 11, just before sunrise, catching eyes with bursts of orange and green light. Reports of the object spanned much of the State, with the brightest reports and vision from the Wheatbelt and Goldfields regions. A police officer has found the first sample of a meteorite that blazed across WA skies a week ago. Credit: Marcus Scott Six days later, the meteorite was found in the Goldfields south of the Breakaways, 460km east of Perth. It was found thanks to calculations from the Desert Fireball Network — a group of meteorite researchers from Curtin University — and the willpower of Ravensthorpe police officer Marcus Scott who reached it first on foot as the researchers separately flew overhead. Mr Scott drove two hours to the potential site after seeing media reports of the meteor and seeing the estimated landing area. His search lasted nearly four hours after trudging through dense bushland, and it wasn't until he had just turned back to beat nightfall that he struck gold. Mr Scott said he had been looking for meteorites for the past three years, and while he has found many in the past, none were quite as exciting as this one. 'It was good, I mean there was no dancing or anything but certainly I was aware of its importance,' he said. 'I'm aware that not a lot of people get to find what are referred to as falls, meteorites that have been witnessed when they're coming in. 'I was aware of its importance and I'm happy to find a bit.' Mr Scott said the indent into the land as well as the dark colouration of the rock were giveaways it was a meteorite. Credit: Marcus Scott The fact it was in a salt lake made the search easier as looking for an indent in the surface was a telltale sign, Mr Scott said. 'The fireball scientists put their estimate of where it was, I noted that most of it went through salt lake country which makes finding meteorites quite easy,' he said. 'Getting there was a struggle, very overgrown bush but once you're out on the salt lakes it makes it a bit easier when you're looking for something that's punched a hole in the salt lake crust.' The meteorite is expected to be collected for study so researchers can classify it and find out where it came from'
ABC News
18-05-2025
- Science
- ABC News
Meteorite that lit up WA's skies found by police officer, Desert Fireball Network
A country police officer has won the race to recover a meteorite that lit up the skies over southern Western Australia. It's believed the astronomical anomaly dubbed the Mother's Day Meteorite entered the atmosphere over the Central Wheatbelt about 6am on May 11, travelling south. A team of scientists from Curtin University's Desert Fireball Network (DFN), who track meteors across Australia, mapped its trajectory, estimating the impact point just south of the Breakaways, 460 kilometres east of Perth in the state's Goldfields. DFN director Eleanor Sansom and her team was in the sky over the crash site when the discovery was made. "I wasn't quite sure we would see anything, but we pretty quickly came across a few exciting suspects," she said. "We circled around, and there were two or three spots on the lake that we were pretty sure were meteorites in the lake. "Then we saw someone out on one of the lakes, scouting around, and we thought, 'Oh, wow, someone has actually gone out to search.' "That's the person who found one yesterday." The man on the ground was Ravensthorpe police officer and amateur meteorite hunter Marcus Scott. Mr Scott, who has found dozens of meteorites on the Nullarbor, was thrilled when he learnt the meteorite may have fallen in his backyard. After a two-hour drive and scramble through dense bush, Mr Scott reached the salt lake and quickly found what he was looking for. "It's a very easy place to find a meteorite, especially if it's recent, like this one, only being seven days since it fell," he said. "The weather has been pretty good out there, so you're going to see the impact on the salt lake and it will stand out. "This was in an open area and quite easy to spot, but the kangaroo prints and the emu prints from a distance also look like a meteorite impact. "So you can find yourself wasting a lot of time chasing after them." Mr Scott estimated the space rock to be about the size of a tennis ball, weighing about 450 grams. And while not a thing of beauty, he said the Mother's Day Meteorite was one of his most special finds. "There are some very nice meteorites that land on Earth, but I wouldn't rank this as a thing of beauty. "It's more of a thing of interest. "It's only been there for seven days compared to thousands of years, and that makes it a bit more special. While other meteorites he has found have "terrestrial weathering", this one looks "a lot more like what a meteorite should look like". "So I would say it's definitely something worth finding," Mr Scott said. The discovery of the first sample has not stopped Dr Sansom and her team, whose aerial reconnaissance had indicated other samples still to be recovered. "We spotted three potential sites and [Mr Scott's rock] was one of them, then there are probably two more," she said. "When it came through [the atmosphere] there were lots of bright flashes, and every time there's a bright flash, that means the rocks fragmented. "This is going to have quite a lot of little pieces of material … what we call a strewn field. "I think this one's going to be quite a special rock, and if it is, it will be incredible to get as much of it as we can."
