Travelers In The Night

Albert D. Grauer
  • 5.0 (2)
  • ASTRONOMY
  • UPDATED SEMIWEEKLY

A real "Science Snack" for anyone who is interested in the extraterrestrial. Dr. Al Grauer is a member of the Catalina Sky Survey which has led the world in near Earth asteroid discoveries for 17 of the past 19 years. The music is "Eternity" by John Lyell. Astronomy  Asteroids Space NASA  Comets  Earth Impact Aliens

  1. 898-Pandora

    2D AGO

    898-Pandora

    Looking into a star filled sky at a place like the Cosmic Campground International Dark Sky Sanctuary in New Mexico inspires a person to wonder if our home planet is unique in the Universe. To begin to answer this question, NASA launched the small satellite Pandora on January 11, 2026 . It is on at least a one year long mission to study the chemical composition of more than 20 planets orbiting nearby stars in the Milky Way.The Pandora satellite’s results will hopefully include a list of potentially habitable planets to be observed the James Webb Space Telescope and other observatories in the search for life elsewhere in the Universe.

    2 min
  2. 387E-424-Long Winter Nights

    5D AGO

    387E-424-Long Winter Nights

    Winter nights can be exhausting, productive, as well as sometimes frustrating for asteroid hunters. At the Sixty Inch Telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona, near winter solstice, the night's observing starts at 6:30 PM and continues till after 6 AM which combined with start up and end tasks makes the asteroid hunter's work "day" more than 13 hours long. On such a recent long winter work night, my Catalina Sky Survey Teammate, Carson Fuls discovered an impressing total of 18 new Earth approaching objects. On the other hand on the next 3 night shift, I was treated to one night which was clear followed by two nights which were dominated by the first big snow storm of the season. The best nights are clear, cold, and calm with asteroid images which are small intense points of light. Such a night is said to have good seeing. Nights which are clear but have bad seeing with fuzzy star and asteroid images due to atmospheric turbulence and high winds makes the discovery of faint objects virtually impossible. High winds can and do shake the telescope producing double images of every object. Nights which consist of sporadic clear holes in the clouds also yield few new discoveries. Fishing what we call "sucker holes" in the clouds is very frustrating since it is hard to verify a new discovery under such conditions. Then there are the nights which are perfectly clear but we have to keep the dome closed because of the snow on it. Then there are those nights which are clear with good seeing from start to finish on which the asteroid hunter makes new discoveries while being treated to views of millions of stars, gas clouds, and galaxies which inspire a child like sense of wonder. For Travelers in the Night this is Dr. Al Grauer. © 2026 A. D. Grauer

    2 min
  3. 897-Kacper's Comet

    MAY 1

    897-Kacper's Comet

    In 2007 a small icy object moving in the constellation of Ursa Minor crossed the orbit of Pluto at a speed of approximately 4.2 mi/s starting its journey towards the inner solar system. It was between the orbits of Saturn and Jupiter traveling at some 9 mi/s towards the Sun, when my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Dr. Kacper Wierzchoś discovered it on March 3, 2024, while asteroid hunting, in the constellation of Draco, with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona. Kacper studies comets passionately was thus excited to observe that it has a coma and a tail.On its way out of the solar system, in 2045, Kacper's COMET C/2024 E1 (Wierzchos) will cross the orbit of Pluto heading in the direction of the constellation Ursa Major and is destined to wander between stars in the Milky Way till the end of time.

    2 min
  4. 386E-423-Silent ET

    APR 28

    386E-423-Silent ET

    Oumuamua (“Oh-moo-ah-moo-ah”) is the asteroid that zipped by the Earth on a trajectory that started beyond our solar system in truly deep space. After rounding our Sun at 97,000 mi/hr this unusual space rock will continue onward into deep interstellar space. The fact that this reddish object's brightness changes by a factor of 10 every 7.3 hours has been interpreted as being due to an elongated rocket or cigar shape which reflects different amounts of sun light in our direction as it tumbles through space. This strange space rock appears to be about 730 feet long and about 100 feet wide. Oumuamua's interstellar path and unusual shape prompted Breakthrough Listen Scientists to use the 300 foot diameter, 8,000 ton, Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope to see if Oumuamua is emitting radio signals which could indicate that it is some type of artifact or spacecraft which passed through our solar system to check it out. Preliminary analysis of several hours of data with a cluster super computers do not reveal any signals of artificial origin even though this instrument could detect a cell phone at the space rock's distance in about a minute. Care is being taken to to reject signals which could be of human origin as well as those which are not consistent with Oumuamua's speed and location. The hypothesis that this interstellar space rock is an alien probe is pretty farfetched, however, how it came to have it's current shape is almost equally hard to imagine.For Travelers in the Night this is Dr. Al Grauer. © 2026 A. D. Grauer

    2 min
  5. 896-Sneaky But Potentially Dangerous

    APR 24

    896-Sneaky But Potentially Dangerous

    My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard was asteroid hunting with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona when he came across an unknown moving point of light in the night sky. After Greg reported his observations to the Minor Planet Center his discovery was tracked by telescopes in California, Romania, Germany, New Mexico, Arizona, Bavaria, and Japan. Astronomers used these data to calculate that Greg’s discovery orbits the sun between Venus and Earth , estimate its size to be approximately twice the length of a football field, and give it the name 2026 BX4. NASA classifies it to be a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, however, since it doesn’t cross the Earth’s orbit it is not an immediate impact threat. In fact it will not come as close to us as it can on its current path until February 17, 2075 when it will pass less than 6 times the moon’s distance from us. Because 2026 BX4’s orbit is entirely within the Earth’s path about the Sun it is classified to be an Atira asteroid. These space rocks are difficult to discover and track because they are always near the Sun in the sky. 2026 BX4 could become an impact threat by gravitational interactions with Earth, Venus or another asteroid. There are also Aten asteroids which spend most of their time inside the Earth’s orbit but cross it and are more of a threat than an Atira asteroid like 2026 BX4. Currently the most dangerous Aten asteroid is Apophis which will safely pass closer to us than the communication satellites on Friday February 13, 2029. Asteroid hunters will continue to discover and track both Atira and Aten asteroids to make sure none of them sneak up on our home planet from the direction of the Sun.

    2 min
  6. 385E-421-New Aten

    APR 21

    385E-421-New Aten

    Recently my Catalina Sky Survey teammates Carson Fuls and Greg Lenoard discovered an Aten asteroid which orbits the Sun once every 272 days and on a path that crosses the orbits of Venus and Earth a number of times each year. Atens account for only about 6% of the Earth approaching asteroids that asteroid hunters discover. They are relatively dim and difficult to discover because they spend most of their time inside the Earth's orbit with their sunlit side facing away from us. For example Carson and Greg's newly discovered asteroid, 2017 WJ16, is bright enough for asteroid hunters to track for only about 50 nights every couple of years. It is about 150 feet in diameter and travels on an orbit which can bring it to a bit more than three times the Moon's distance from Earth. When 2017 WJ16 is closer to the Sun than Earth it travels faster then we do allowing it to catch and just barely cross our orbit as we both travel about the Sun. In 2020, 2017 WJ16 will make one of it's closer approaches to us when it comes to about less than 5 times the Moon's distance from our home planet. At that time it will be traveling at 2.9 miles/second relative to us which is well within reach of our current rocket technology. I suspect that in the future if the pattern of colors which 2017 WJ16 reflects, reveals a high metal or water content humans will mine it to construct and operate their colonies in space.

    2 min
  7. 895-Tracking Space Junk

    APR 17

    895-Tracking Space Junk

    According to NASA an average of one catalogued piece of space junk per day has come down to Earth over the past 50 years. Research is described which can track space junk in the atmosphere and provide the starting location and altitude for tracking clouds of environmentally problematic toxic chemical and/or nuclear contaminants released by the disintegration of reentering spacecraft.

    2 min
  8. 384E-420-Dry Sands

    APR 14

    384E-420-Dry Sands

    The NASA Curiosity Rover has shown us evidence of ancient rivers and bodies of liquid water on the martian surface. Given it's thin cold atmosphere, seeps of liquid water, presently on the surface of Mars which are capable of hosting microbial life appear to be unlikely. Scientists were thus surprised when high resolution imaging of the red planet's surface revealed thousands of intriguing dark streaks called RSL on hundreds of rocky slope areas. These fascinating features slowly extend down hill and grow during the martian warm season, fade during the colder season, and reappear during the next martian warm period. On Earth features like these are produced by seeps of liquid water. However, on Mars a careful study of 151 RSL features at ten different sites using the high resolution camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter reveal that they occur almost entirely on slopes which are greater than 27 degrees. This new research published in Nature Geoscience suggests that RSL are composed of solid particles in dry granular flows which unlike water seeps appear to end on many of the dunes when it's slope falls below a critical value. What makes RSL tick remains a mystery and likely involves small amounts of water trapped from the atmosphere. Currently surface conditions are hostile to life as we know it, however, the possibility of finding evidence of ancient life or perhaps even still existing microbe colonies in deep sub surface pockets of water are reasons to continue to explore our next door neighbor without contaminating it.

    2 min
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About

A real "Science Snack" for anyone who is interested in the extraterrestrial. Dr. Al Grauer is a member of the Catalina Sky Survey which has led the world in near Earth asteroid discoveries for 17 of the past 19 years. The music is "Eternity" by John Lyell. Astronomy  Asteroids Space NASA  Comets  Earth Impact Aliens

Information

  • Creator
    Albert D. Grauer
  • Years Active
    2015 - 2026
  • Episodes
    1K
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Albert D. Grauer
  • Show Website
    Travelers In The Night

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