A new NASA outreach project will enlist the help of amateur astronomers to discover near-Earth objects (NEOs) and study their characteristics. NEOs are asteroids with orbits that occasionally bring them close to the Earth.
The amateur astronomers are about to make observations that will affect current and future space missions to asteroids. Some will use custom-made, often automated, telescopes equipped with CCD cameras in their backyards. Others will use home computers to make remote observations with more powerful telescopes states or continents away. Many belong to leading national and international amateur astronomy organizations with members ranging from retirees to school kids.
Researchers on NASA’s robotic asteroid sample return mission, OSIRIS-REx, are turning to amateur astronomers for new data on near-Earth asteroids in a citizen science observing campaign called “Target Asteroids!” The campaign starts in April 2012 and will last at least to the end of this decade.
The full name of the OSIRIS-REx mission is Origins Spectral Interpretation Resource Identification Security – Regolith Explorer. The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is to launch in 2016, reach a well-characterized primitive asteroid called (101955) 1999 RQ36 in 2019, examine that body up close during a 505-day rendezvous, then return at least 60 grams of it to Earth in 2023.
“Asteroids are a rich and accessible historic archive of the origin of our Solar System and life, a valuable source of mineral resources, and potentially hazardous Earth impactors that civilization must learn to deal with,” said OSIRIS-REx Principal Investigator Dante Lauretta of the University of Arizona. “Our mission will address all these issues.”
1999 RQ36 — a 500-meter-diameter, dark carbonaceous asteroid — is difficult for even powerful Earth-based telescopes to observe at this time because it is relatively distant from Earth.
“Amateur astronomers are asked to observe asteroids selected because they are in near-Earth orbits that can be reached by current-generation spacecraft and are at least 200 meters in diameter,” said Target Asteroids! scientist Carl Hergenrother, head of the OSIRIS-REx astronomy working group.
“Precise orbits, sizes, rotation rates, physical composition and other important characteristics for these asteroids are largely unknown, ” Hergenrother said.
“We want amateur astronomers to do astrometry (which precisely measures positions of objects), photometry (which measures brightness) and spectroscopy (which measures the colors, or wavelengths, of light) to discover as much as we can about these objects,” he said.
“These will be challenging objects to observe because they are very faint,” said Target Asteroids! coordinator Dolores Hill of the OSIRIS-REx education and public outreach program. “Amateur astronomers may have to make what are called ‘track and stack’ observations,” a technique that acquires and adds multiple short images.
“One of the major goals of having amateur astronomers on board is they can observe these objects every night, unlike professional astronomers who may get to telescopes once every few nights, or more typically once a month or every three months,” Hergenrother said.
People don’t need to own their own telescopes or live under clear skies to work on Target Asteroids!, Hergenrother and Hill emphasized.
For not much money, observers can now go online and sign up to use a growing network of quality robotic telescopes sited at some of the choicest astronomical spots in the country, they added.
Scientists will compare data from amateur and professional astronomers’ ground-based observations with data from OSIRIS-REx spacecraft instruments to learn more about Earth-crossing asteroids and identify likely candidates for future asteroid missions, they said.
For more information see the Target Asteroids! web page.
