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NEO Search

Rebecca Jenson-Clem, Augusta Runyon, Emily Joseph & Austin Federa. NEO Search. What is a N.E.O.?.

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NEO Search

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  1. Rebecca Jenson-Clem, Augusta Runyon, Emily Joseph & Austin Federa NEO Search

  2. What is a N.E.O.? NEOs are objects left over from the formation of the solar system. Near-Earth objects (NEO) are asteroids, comets or large meteoroids whose orbit intersects Earth's orbit and which may collide sometime in the future. These objects range from miles across to 15 meters or less.

  3. Catalina Sky Survey The Catalina Sky Survey group is one of the many groups using telescopes searching for NEOs. They have been searching since 1998 with the use of a telescope of Mt. Bigelow as well as a 60” at MT Lemmon.

  4. The Software The software designed to aid in the discovery of NEOs was custom built by the Catalina Sky Survey to help them pick out moving objects. It works by taking a series of images of different areas of the sky over time. This is usually done in sets of 8 fields, with 4 pictures per field of sky. It images in the order of field 1,2,3…8, then back to 1, 2, etc. Till there are 4 pictures of each set.

  5. Spotting NEOs After the fields have been imaged, a pipeline of 4 computers identifies every object in the images. It proceeds to blink the images, searching for any moving objects. The computers then detect what objects have a 95% chance and automatically labels them as main-belt asteroids. It then will show you items that may either be NEOs or false detections.

  6. Our NEO During the course of our observations, we managed to detect one unknown NEO. The NEO has been given the identification of “2005 MG5” and has been confirmed by Sabino Canyon Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.

  7. Pictures of our NEO

  8. Pictures of our NEO

  9. Pictures of our NEO

  10. Pictures of our NEO

  11. Pictures of our NEO

  12. Pictures of our NEO

  13. Pictures of our NEO

  14. Pictures of our NEO

  15. Orbital Data We plotted the orbit of our NEO using the change in position between the different observations of the object. At the time, the object’s semi major axis is 2.13 AU in radius, and its eccentricity is 0.46 off a perfect circle. The inclination, or distance above the ecliptic, is 6.67degrees. The perihelion (closest distance to the sun) is 1.16 AU and the closest it gets to earth is 0.2 AU.

  16. The Orbit This is the orbit and distance the day we found it

  17. Acknowledgements Thank You to, Caitlin Casey for her help in identifying objects, teaching us how to operate the software. Don McCarthy for organizing this camp, helping us analyze data and providing a one of a kind opportunity for us. The University of Arizona for funding these observatories and donating this week for our use. Last to Yvette Cendes for the use of her laptop.

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