Travelers In The Night Albert D. Grauer

It was murky cloudy night on Mt. Lemmon where I was trying to find Earth approaching objects with the Catalina Sky Survey 60 inch telescope. At about 1AM another hole in the clouds opened and I could see stars on the all sky video camera. On this fourth attempt, one set of images showed a bright rapidly moving object. Followup observations by my teammate Greg Leonard using the Catalina Sky Survey 40 inch telescope next door and two different observers in Japan provided the data which allowed the Minor Planet Center to calculate an orbit, estimate a size, predict its path in the sky, and give it the name 2016 VA. Twenty hours after I discovered it, Dr. Gianluca Masi using the Virtual Telescope Project facility 56 miles south of Rome, Italy, repeatedly imaged 2016 VA as it made an 11 minute passage through the Earth's shadow. He used these images to make a remarkable video of this tiny asteroid as it passed through the Earth's umbra. It was the fastest asteroid that he had ever tracked. Fortunately a bit after this video, 2016 VA missed the Earth by about 59,000 miles while traveling at a speed of 13 miles per second relative to us. In 2024 it will once again come near to both the Earth and our Moon.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Jacqueline Fazekas was asteroid hunting with our small but mighty Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona when she spotted and then reported a bright moving point of light in the night sky to the Minor Planet Center.Given the rate of human caused climate change one has to wonder about the state of our planet in January of 2163 when 2024 ER is predicted to pass safely some 66 lunar distances from humanity.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Rose Matheny had no way of knowing that the fast moving point of light that she had just discovered would create such a stir. Rose sent in her discovery and followup observations to the Minor Planet Center where astronomers calculated that her discovery would make a very close approach to Earth about two days later and gave it the name 2016 RB1. More than two dozen observatories around the world tracked 2016 RB1 as it came towards us.

In an astonishing rebirth, the Mayall 4-m telescope has jumped to the forefront of astronomy once again because it is sturdy and precise enough to carry the massive Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument which routinely obtains the spectra of 5,000 galaxies simultaneously.

More than 400 years ago Galileo Galilei expanded human vision using a telescope to view the cosmos. Since then humans have extended their senses to view the Universe in x-rays, ultraviolet, infrared, radio, and other portions of the electromagnetic spectrum not accessible to our senses. In a pioneering effort, Ekaterina Smirnova has employed the spectroscopy, magnetometry, and molecular data collected by the Rosetta spacecraft to create watercolor paintings, sculptures, a musical collaboration, and an augmented reality project to create new art forms. She has also taken Rosetta data obtained from it's close up observations of comet 67P to create interactive art which uses a smart phone app to experience scientific results in a completely new way.

The Cosmic Campground International Dark Sky Sanctuary and the Aldo Leopold Gila Wilderness in New Mexico are gateways to nature where man is only a visitor.These New Mexico neighbors give us a sense of wonder, glimpses of history, new knowledge to mitigate the effects of man’s excesses, and many other opportunities we are yet to fully appreciate.