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Space Science

Yale Students Capture Asteroid On Film 145

Posted by timothy from the well-digital-film-anyhow dept.
netringer writes: "Two Yale University students used the WIYN 0.9-meter telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory to capture a series of still images of asteroid 2002 NY40 on August 15-16, two nights before it made a close flyby of Earth. The still images were made into a cool digital movie that shows the asteroid streaking across the sky over a period of two hours. According to an AP story the students were supposed to looking at some binary stars when they decided to look a the asteroid instead."
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Yale Students Capture Asteroid On Film More

Yale Students Capture Asteroid On Film

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  • But how? (Score:2, Funny)

    by flewp ( 458359 )
    How does one capture an asteroid on film? Seems like it would break right through it. I mean, afterall, it's hurtling down from space, so it's going really fast and it's really hot.

  • I also got some pictures! (Score:5, Funny)

    by nEoN nOoDlE ( 27594 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @02:39AM (#4125053)
    I also took a picture of the asteroid about to hit earth... Here [virtualgaz.co.uk] it is
  • That's not what it looked like in Armageddon.

  • That was no asteroid!! (Score:4, Funny)

    by DoctorFrog ( 556179 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @02:43AM (#4125063)
    I played the movie several times, and there's only one conclusion. That thing was obviously accelerating and decelerating under power!

    It seemed to be keeping time to "blue Suede Shoes" too, but that's probably just a coincidence. Probably...

    • I played the movie several times, and there's only one conclusion. That thing was obviously accelerating and decelerating under power!

      No, those gaps are there to insert commercials.

      Don't you know anything about science?
  • Have you people no mercy, linking directly to the movie? As morning rolls 'round, the National Optical Astronomy Observatory servers are going to get a royal beating.

    Thank goodness it's the middle of the night, else I wouldn't have been able to snag such a neat-o .mov. Thank you, insomnia!

  • We need more eyes on the skies (Score:5, Insightful)

    by marcsiry ( 38594 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @02:50AM (#4125080) Homepage
    The state of near-earth asteroid detection is pretty pitiful. [nasa.gov] We need years of warning if we're to divert an asteroid, not days.

    Asteroid hunting should be part of the basic curriculum for astronomy programs, if it isn't already. Multiply a half dozen students by every university in the world and you've suddenly increased our detection capacity by several orders of magnitude.
    • Of course it's just as important to develop a practical means to actually deflect the asteroid away from Earth's orbit.
      • Of course it's just as important to develop a practical means to actually deflect the asteroid away from Earth's orbit.

        Only if we actually find one. If there aren't any, you don't need the deflector. If there are, then you have all the justification you need for spending massive amounts on deflection tech. So go for as much detection budget as possible first.
    • Multiply a half dozen students by every university in the world and you've suddenly increased our detection capacity by several orders of magnitude.

      Wouldn't help much if they are looking at the sky with naked eyes. I bet the bottleneck is the number of appropriate telescopes not the number of watching eyes.
    • If I'm correct wouldn't it be near impossible to tell if we really were on a collision course with an asteroid? After all, we are used to seeing video like this of a passing asteroid, and due to the fact that they are passing we are able to perceive movement relatively easily, however were it bound straight for earth the object would not appear to move, only to slowly get bigger and brighter.

      • Re:We need more eyes on the skies (Score:4, Informative)

        by p3d0 ( 42270 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @06:50AM (#4125510)
        Two things:
        1. Asteroids that will hit us are not travelling straight at us. You seem to be under the impression that the earth is motionless, or perhaps that we're sitting on some sort of record player that makes us revolve about the sun while the asteroid comes carreening straight for us. The truth is that asteroids (and everything else in the solar system) are in elliptical orbits around the sun. It's a matter of determining whether the asteroid's orbit will intersect ours. In fact, an asteroid coming straight along our line of sight would almost surely miss us.
        2. Regardless, you don't find an asteroid that's going to hit us by looking for ones coming straight at us. You look at their orbit long in advance, calculate where it will be weeks/months in the future, and see if it's within a dangerous distance of Earth.
        • 1.Asteroids that will hit us are not travelling straight at us. [...] In fact, an asteroid coming straight along our line of sight would almost surely miss us.

          Nope. The concern is the net vector, not the individual vectors of Earth and asteroid. For it to hit us, the net vector has to be toward us -- therefore straight along our line of sight. Same principle flying or driving -- the vehicles that are moving relative to a spot on the windshield are not the ones you have to worry about, it's the ones that look like a spot on the windshield (and getting bigger) that are the ones that'll hit. (Ditto for side windows.)

          Now, if you're talking about months or years in advance, then yes, because of the curvature of the orbits it won't be on a direct vector at that time. Just when it's too close to do much about it.
          • The concern is the net vector, not the individual vectors of Earth and asteroid. For it to hit us, the net vector has to be toward us...
            Ok, but we're not talking about flying or driving here; we're talking about orbital mechanics. For something to hit us, it must be on an intersecting orbit, and those do not follow direct line-of-sight until near the end, unless the object is moving very quickly. In either case, we have little hope to make any difference, as you say.

            However, I do think my claim that it would "almost surely miss us" was far too strong, and probably should have been more like "might not necessarily hit us". :-)

        • Asteroids that will hit us are not travelling straight at us....you don't find an asteroid that's going to hit us by looking for ones coming straight at us. You look at their orbit long in advance

          Yes, but that would make Star Trek confusing.

          Ensign: "Captain: It is coming *strait* at us!"

          Captain: "In that case, relax Ensign. It does not mean anything."
    • Asteroid hunting should be part of the basic curriculum for astronomy programs, if it isn't already.

      Traditional asteroid hunting is a truly obsessive-compulsive kind of thing. I mean, it's good that somebody does it, but the last thing we want to do is turn introductory astronomy courses into the sort of brainwashing exercise it would take to produce these people.

      Besides, many of the existing asteroid hunters undoubtedly don't want any more competition.

    • Last June there was a closer near miss, [slashdot.org] of a smaller asteroid, that was only detected after its closest approach to Earth. This article [planetary.org] commented on the press hysteria over the failure of

      however, some of the press coverage has been sensationalistic. Some either decry that the object was found after closest approach (rather than before) or express concern about the "blind spot" otherwise commonly known to astronomers as the daytime sky.

      The NASA page [nasa.gov] he cites says the plan is to map all the major near Earth asteroids by 2008. How is this pitiful? If extinction class rocks hit us every 10^7 or 10^8 years, how much time can we budget to defend ourselves against the next one? What if it took 10^2 years? Would that be an unreasonable amount of time to be confident we had detected most of them?

      The rock last week was about 100 meters in diameter. Tunguska is estimated to have been 60 meters in diameter. Since the mass goes up as the cube of the diameter this one would have been about five times as powerful as Tunguska. The planetary.org article I linked to says one that size strikes us every couple of millenia. Is this program a failure if we can't detect and divert the next Tunguska sized rock? The article says the Tunguska strike was as powerful as the blast from a 16 megaton H-bomb. It said it devastated 2000 square kilometres. That would be a square about 42 kilometers on a side. Ie. Bigger than Monaco, smaller than NYC.

      16 megatons? Rick Green's [pbs.org] glossary of cold-war terms defined a "small-theatre nuclear exchange" as "Curtains for the actors after just one act, hence the prefix 'small theatre'". Sure, this could be devastating for lots of people, if it too didn't land somewhere relatively deserted, like northern Siberia. But civilization would survive, even if it landed on Hollywood.

      The planetary.org article said 25% or more of the rocks that have hit Earth may have been long period comets. Figuring out how to detect and deflect long period comets that might hit the Earth would be much more difficult. Maybe so much more difficult we shouldn't waste any resources trying?

  • Yeah right (Score:2, Funny)

    by Nept ( 21497 )
    I could do this in MS Paint and Adobe Premiere in a half an hour... what the heck. Move a white pixel across a grey background...

  • Hmph! (Score:4, Funny)

    by I Love this Company! ( 547598 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @02:53AM (#4125086)
    Making "still images" into a digital movie. Back in my day, if we wanted to see heavens, we had to use Galileo's original telescope model from 1610! And we didn't have movies; each frame had to be hand drawn and the whole stack had to be manually flipped to create motion. Kids today!

    --

    "All art is quite useless."

    • Re:Hmph! (Score:2, Funny)

      by flewp ( 458359 )
      And you liked it, damnit!

    • Re:Hmph! (Score:3, Funny)

      by Russ Steffen ( 263 )

      Telescope, Schmeloscope! In my day if you wanted to see an asteriod you had look up and squint really hard. I once squinted so hard I could see the Red Spot on Jupiter and individual stars in Andromeda. But then my eyes popped.

      You kids and your "telescopes" have it easy.

  • I could animate some gifs that look more realistic than that movie:-) But I would add an explosion or something at the end to scare people:-) (and some space ships) Very cool though!

  • Finally.. (Score:4, Funny)

    by batobin ( 10158 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @02:59AM (#4125096) Homepage
    Finally, astronomy for people such as myself with small attention spans. This is huge! It's just what the science needs to gain entire new audiences.....whoah! Something shiny!

  • The movie (Score:4, Funny)

    by Tribbles ( 218927 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @03:12AM (#4125118) Homepage
    foreach $frame (0..100) {
    $image = newImage(128, 128);
    $image.plotRandomStars();
    $image.plot(10 + $frame, 10 + $frame);
    $image.write();
    }
    • CLS
      SCREEN 13
      REM ASTEROIDS ROOL~!

      FOR i% = 1 TO 320 STEP 1
      PSET (i%, 150)
      NEXT i%

      END
    • youd have random 'jumpy stars', what you want is:

      $image = newImage(128, 128);
      $image.plotRandomStars();
      foreach $frame (0..100) {
      $image.plot(10 + $frame, 10 + $frame);
      $image.write();
      }

      • But yours would'nt clear the screen...

        I'd already thought of this:

        sub plotRandomStars()
        {
        srand(123456);
        foreach (0..500) {
        $image.plot(rand() & 127, rand() & 127, rand() & 255);
        # Assuming grey-scale image
        }
        }

        It's kinda Perl, but won't work...
    • Do you know the trouble with Tribbles?
      He (she) refuses to be impressed with a simple yet elegant soluition to a problem. Would a real live time lapse movie be any better?

  • More links... (Score:5, Informative)

    by countach ( 534280 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @03:19AM (#4125129)
    Here is a link [planetary.org] offering more info on NY40, and some more info here [rasnz.org.nz]. And there is a video here [nasa.gov].

  • insubordination will not be tolerated (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    the students were supposed to looking at some binary stars when they decided to look a the asteroid instead.
    Sounds rebellious and free-thinking if you ask me.. I think they should be interned lest they cause a revolution.

    Kids who don't do what they're told and know how to use a telescope? Why, next they'll be using the telescope to plan the trajectory of ICBMs!

    Their professors should report them under the TIPS [citizencorps.gov] program, especially in the event of a student holding a temporary visa, to ensure a quick, appeal-free exile.

  • i wonder how many sattelites get smashed by these metoer showers each year...
    • Probably none. The earth is very, very big, and asteroids and satellites are very, very, very small.
    • satellites smashed by asteriods? - probably none, as they usually don't come close enough.
      Meteoric dust (mostly stuff that is blown off comets) is much more of a problem. Even though they are usually less than 1mm in diameter, they are travelling at speeds up to 75km/second! They can and have caused damage to satellites. The most satellite operators can do when a meteoric storm is predicted (ie the Perseids and Leonids) is to turn their solar panels to be edge-on (=smaller target), close the doors over their sensors, and cross their fingers.

  • Damn, it's Quicktime (Score:1, Offtopic)

    by phr2 ( 545169 )
    Is there such thing as a Quicktime viewer with source code, that runs under Linux? I have mplayer installed but it only knows about mpeg and avi. Yeah, I know there's a closed-source viewer available from Apple, but I won't run stuff without source.

  • here's the gif ;-) (Score:5, Informative)

    by tanveer1979 ( 530624 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @04:17AM (#4125239) Homepage Journal
    here is gif [astropage.nl] of the same in case you dont like quicktime ;-) hurray
  • ... resembles a small asteroid passing through Earth's atmosphere.
  • A white dot moving between other white dots?

    I was expecting to see craters!!!!

  • Links to more video, still photos (Score:4, Informative)

    by north.coaster ( 136450 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @06:49AM (#4125508) Homepage

    The folks at Yale were not the only ones looking at the sky that night. SpaceWeather.com [spaceweather.com] has some links to other images here [nasa.gov].

    /Don

  • I would think that over 2 hours, we would see some rotation in the stars. PERHAPS this is explained by accurate tracking by the telescope...I'm not an astronomer, so I don't know. Still, any long term shot I have seen of the sky at night shows star rotation as the earth moves.

    • Re:Is it for real??? (Score:4, Interesting)

      by LMCBoy ( 185365 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @09:07AM (#4125994) Homepage Journal
      Yes, telescopes track the sky. They have to, because astronomers like to look at really faint things, so they have to expose for a long time.

      If the telescope has an equatorial mount (like the 0.9 m WIYN telescope they used), then you don't get any field rotation while tracking. A horizontal mount (like almost all recently-built telescopes have) does give you field rotation, but the computer can simply counter-rotate the detector to correct for it.

  • In response.... (Score:2, Insightful)

    by p_trekkie ( 597206 )
    ...to everyone who commented on how faked the movie looks.

    Yes, you could do the same with photoshop... Or better, just look at Star Wars. But most asteroids (and most everything within the solar system other than the planets) are nothing more than little dots on a black field. Contrary to popular belief, much of astronomy is not about pretty pictures.

    As for the stars not moving, I'm not familiar with the set up of the Kitt Peak telescope, but they most have some sort of sidereal rate drive motors installed. There isn't much astronomy one can do with a streak.
    • Never mind that the movies were likely put together by hand, if only to verify they were ok. They could have been corrected for rotation at the time and the frame could have been trimmed down in size.

    • ... and frankly, i really am not looking forward to the day astronomy becomes more than just white dots on black background, i like those dots to remain just that ... dots. grmf.

  • "According to an AP story the students were supposed to looking at some binary stars when they decided to look a the asteroid instead."

    Isn't that always the case? Man, those star gazers are a rebelious bunch!
  • I saw this on the CNN website and thought it was a lame shot at some publicity... I saw similar animations done by amateurs within hours of the close approach.

    Nice job for some students, but enough for national press attention? Slow news day for slashdot, I guess.

  • Looked like the first 5 secs of the opening sequence to Star Trek (TOS)
  • "According to an AP story the students were supposed to looking at some binary stars when they decided to look a the asteroid instead."

    I can see how it all transpired now...

    "No guys, I said we should use the telescope to check out pieces of ass...but I guess this is cool too."

  • I work across the hall from these guys . . . (Score:4, Informative)

    by Betelgeuse ( 35904 ) on Friday August 23, 2002 @10:30AM (#4126594) Homepage
    . . . and they were on a long-ass observing run and decided it would be fun to take some exposures of the asteroid. The movie on the NOAO site doesn't really do the original images justice, but our sysadmin won't let me put up a larger animation in order to see if our system can survive a slashdotting.
  • It's a bowling ball! Didn't anyone else spot the finger-holes?
  • ... it's considered REALLY bad form to not stick to your proposed research project on shared telescopes where you have to apply for time. I don't know how the WIYN handles proposals, but the general KPNO one from a few years back wanted (among other things to justify the scientific program) your target list, etc. While you have control over what gets observed at the time of observation (because seeing conditions change and might cause you to shift priority), switching over to something else "just because" could result in your NOT getting time the next time you want it!

    (I got extra lucky once and got an extra night on the 0.9 Coude Feed because the people scheduled next cancelled! The hardest part was convincing America West to let me change my no-change no-refund ticket that this was an insanely improbable circumstance - I kept telling them that it was easier to win the lottery. :-) When they found out I was a grad student working on my thesis, they were really REALLY nice about it.)
    • That's an exaggeration. People go off their proposal all the time. That's about the only way gamma ray bursts get captured.

      Plus, it happens quite often that:
      * The night is not of high enough quality for your project (e.g. cirrus on a photometry project)
      * Your targets set an hour before dawn or rise an hour after sunset
      * The TAC gives you time when the moon is within 10 degrees of your target (been there, done that)

      WIYN generally has a fair bit of free time. Wisconsin has implemented a "Grad Student Queue", about a night or two per year for experimental projects. Its good practice for younger students and sometimes leads to published papers.

      I'd rather win the lottery than get an extra night of Coude Feed time. Getting a free night or a half night is not as unlikely as you describe. The 2.1m telescope only is only oversubscribed by a factor of 2.23 according to the March NAOA newsletter (http://www.noao.edu/noao/noaonews.html) (meaning almost half of the applicants are granted time) which is MUCH better odds than the lottery.
      • * Your targets set an hour before dawn or rise an hour after sunset

        This was the case here. They had plenty of objects to observe for the first part of the night, but had nothing to observe for the second half. They tried desperately to find some "real science" targets, but in the end realized that "real science" could be done with a time series of an asteroid (and it made for a cool movie).

  • About the WIYN 0.9m telescope (Score:3, Informative)

    by ChrisDolan ( 24101 ) <chris+slashdot@nosPaM.chrisdolan.net> on Friday August 23, 2002 @01:04PM (#4127968) Homepage
    For the curious, are are some factoids about that telescope.

    * There is NO film involved. This telescope has been purely digital for quite a while.

    * It was the KPNO 0.9m until it was sold to the WIYN (Wisconsin, Indiana, Yale and NOAO) consortium. since NOAO runs Kitt Peak, this means that the telescope used to be 100% accessible to US astronomers, and now 60% of its time is dedicated to observers at WI, IN and Yale (which is cool for them!).
    * As off the last time I checked, it boasts shared use of the biggest digital camera on the mountain: 8192 x 8192 pixels (on 8 2048x4096 chips)
    * It was built in the early 70's IIRC. It is run by a PDP-11 with Forth software.
    * For some of it's computer parts, there are no more spares anywhere. When they die, it's upgrade time.
    * It is right next to the WIYN 3.5m telescope
    * The dome roof gets frozen open or shut in the winter sometimes, despite being in southern Arizona.

    * I spent about two weeks at that telescope, about half of which was cloudy...
    * Here's the type of picture that 8192x8192 camera can take (before a lot of postprocessing): the Orion Nebula (shrunk to 1270x948) http://www.astro.wisc.edu/~dolan/thesis/trap.gif
    * It has a pretty nice stereo system, but not as nice as the one at the 3.5m telescope (Klipsch speakers!)
    * It's a fun telescope to use.

  • wow (Score:1)

    by Chan01 ( 598420 )
    wow that was the most amazing video i have seen in my life... (*cough, ahem cough, something in my throat*)

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