Latest news with #Kareta
Saudi Gazette
04-07-2025
- Science
- Saudi Gazette
Astronomers spot an interstellar object zipping through our solar system
PASADENA, California — A newly discovered object speeding through our solar system is sparking excitement among astronomers because it's not from around here. Believed to be a comet, the object is only the third celestial body from beyond our solar system ever to be observed in our corner of the universe. This interstellar visitor, now officially named 3I/ATLAS, became known when the NASA-funded ATLAS (Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System) telescope in Chile reported spotting it on Tuesday. Since then, astronomers reviewing archival observations from multiple telescopes have tracked the object's movements as far back as June 14 and found that the comet arrived from the direction of the Sagittarius constellation. The comet's speed and path through the solar system are two strong indicators that it originated beyond our solar system, said Gianluca Masi, astronomer and astrophysicist at the Bellatrix Astronomical Observatory in Italy and founder and scientific director of the Virtual Telescope Project. Masi has been making observations of the comet and will stream a live view of the object on the Virtual Telescope Project's website beginning at 6 p.m. ET Thursday. The comet is moving at nearly 37 miles per second (60 kilometers per second) — or 133,200 miles per hour (about 214,364 kilometers per hour) — too fast to be a 'local' object in our solar system, said Teddy Kareta, an assistant professor at Villanova University near Philadelphia. 'Objects bound to the sun — denizens of our solar system — take paths around it that return to the same point,' Kareta wrote in an email. 'The Earth's orbit is mostly circular, Pluto's orbit is a stretched oval, and many comets are very highly 'eccentric' — their orbits are very long and narrow ellipses. This object's path through the solar system is very nearly a straight line.' Tracking the object's orbit also reveals the path it has taken to reach our solar system, said Dr. Paul Chodas, director of NASA's Center of Near-Earth Object Studies at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. 'When we extrapolate its motion backwards in time we see that it clearly originated from outside our Solar System,' Chodas wrote in an email. 'It must have originated from another Solar System and probably has been travelling through interstellar space for millions of years until it happened to encounter our Solar System.' Since the initial sighting of the comet, located 420 million miles (675 million kilometers) from Earth, astronomers have rushed to observe the object with telescopes around the world. One of those astronomers is Kareta, who observed the comet, using the Lowell Observatory's Lowell Discovery Telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona, as soon as he heard about it on the night of its discovery. He said he believes it will only be a couple of weeks before just about every large telescope on Earth and in space has made time to spot and track the comet. 'People are excited. Almost every planetary astronomer I know immediately ran to a telescope or sent emails requesting telescope (observing) time in the next few days,' said Kareta, formerly a postdoctoral researcher at the Lowell Observatory. 'While we might have several months to study this fascinating object, the earlier we can figure out how it works — how it is evolving, what strange or unexpected properties it might have — the quicker we can plan for the rest of its passage through the solar system.' Comet 3I/ATLAS follows two other intriguing interstellar objects, called ISOs, that once passed through our solar system: 'Oumuamua in 2017 and 2I/Borisov in 2019. Both objects, also thought to be interstellar comets, stirred intense interest. The accelerated movements of cigar-shaped 'Oumuamua even ignited claims that it could be an alien probe. Little is known so far about comet 3I/ATLAS. Astronomers estimate its diameter to be 12 miles (20 kilometers), with significant uncertainty due to the object's brightness, Masi said. However, the comet seems to be the brightest and fastest of the three interstellar objects discovered so far, Kareta noted. 3I/ATLAS is approaching our solar system from the Milky Way's galactic center, a different direction than the previous objects, Chodas said. The object has shown signs of cometary activity, including that it appears to be losing mass like a comet. Comets are made of ice, frozen gases and rock, and as they near stars such as the sun, heat causes them to release gas and dust, which creates their signature tails. But it's not yet clear what kind of material is releasing from 3I/ATLAS or what process is causing it, Kareta said. 'Considering the lingering disagreements about what caused the orbital acceleration of the first ISO 'Oumuamua, I'd be surprised if diagnosing and understanding this wasn't a priority for most,' Kareta wrote in an email. 'We don't know where (3I/ATLAS) came from yet, but as our understanding of the object's orbit (increases) we might be able to make some good guesses in a few months.' Astronomers said that the comet poses no threat to Earth and will remain at least 150 million miles (240 million kilometers) from our planet. The comet is currently about 416 million miles (670 million kilometers) away from the sun and will make its closest approach to our star around October 30 at a distance of 130 million miles (210 million kilometers), according to NASA. The comet will also whip by Mars on October 2 at 18 million miles (30 million kilometers) from the red planet. This is a relatively close pass, astronomically speaking. For reference, Earth is about 93 million miles (150 million kilometers) from the sun. The nearest the comet will come to Earth is 167 million miles (270 million kilometers) on December 19, Masi said. Masi said the comet is currently visible in the Sagittarius constellation, which is best viewed from the southern sky in the middle of the night. While the full moon on July 10 will make 3I/ATLAS difficult to observe, observations even with small telescopes should improve in the coming months, he added. Astronomers expect that the comet will remain visible for ground-based telescope observations through September before disappearing from view. It should reappear on the other side of the sun in early December, enabling follow-up observations. It will be observable well into mid-2026, Chodas said. Further study could reveal whether comets look the same in other solar systems, Kareta said. Studying interstellar objects is also crucial to gaining a broader understanding of planets beyond our solar system and how they form, he added, describing these visitors as 'some of the most fascinating things we've discovered.' 'They're comets and asteroids which formed around other stars — the building blocks of planets around those faraway stars — which got ejected into interstellar space which we later find as they zip through our solar system,' Kareta said. 'We want to measure everything we can about these objects to compare them to our own local comets and asteroids. They're big questions, but the fact that we can make any progress on them by studying these fascinating objects should tell you why planetary astronomers are so excited to learn everything we can about them.' — CNN
Yahoo
28-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
China's Tianwen-2 mission launches to explore asteroid that may be a lunar fragment
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. China has launched an ambitious mission to study two intriguing objects in our solar system, the likes of which have never been visited by a spacecraft before. The Tianwen-2 mission launched aboard a Long March 3B rocket from the Xichang Satellite Launch Center in Sichuan province at 1:31 p.m. ET on Wednesday (1:31 a.m. Thursday local time in China), according to the China National Space Administration. Like Tianwen-1, which lifted off in July 2020 with two aims — delivering an orbiter and a rover to Mars — Tianwen-2 has two goals. The mission's initial goal is to fly by and collect the country's first samples from an asteroid. The space rock, called Kamoʻoalewa or asteroid 2016 HO3, may be a chunk chipped off the moon, which has become a 'quasi-satellite' near our planet. The spacecraft will spend one year flying to the asteroid and another year orbiting and assessing potential landing sites. After dropping off those samples at Earth via a capsule about 2 ½ years from now, the mission will then take seven years to reach an unusual object called main belt comet 311P/Pan-STARRS and conduct a flyby. Sometimes referred to as an active asteroid, the celestial object orbits between Mars and Jupiter and produces dusty, comet-like tails. Both Kamoʻoalewa and 311P/Pan-STARRS are incredibly interesting targets that stem from populations of objects that, up until a couple of years ago, astronomers barely knew existed, said Dr. Teddy Kareta, a postdoctoral associate of planetary science at Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona. 'Now we get to study them up close in a kind of detail that will really revolutionize our understanding of them and objects like them,' Kareta said in an email. 'Plus, any time we see a new kind of Solar System object for the first time with a spacecraft … it's like opening presents on your birthday. Whatever's underneath the wrapping paper, it's always exciting to see something for the first time and to try to do your best to understand it.' Astronomers first discovered Kamoʻoalewa in 2016 using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System, or Pan-STARRS, telescope in Hawaii. Ben Sharkey, now a visiting senior faculty specialist at the University of Maryland, College Park, led a study published in November 2021 suggesting that the Ferris wheel-size asteroid may be a massive boulder ejected from the moon by an impact. The name Kamoʻoalewa comes from a Hawaiian creation chant that alludes to an offspring traveling on its own. It will be the smallest asteroid ever visited, measuring between 150 and 190 feet (46 and 58 meters) in diameter, said Dr. Patrick Michel, director of research exceptional class at the French National Centre for Scientific Research. Michel also served as a coinvestigator on missions by NASA and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency — OSIRIS-REx and Hayabusa2, respectively — that returned asteroid samples to Earth. Bennu, the asteroid sampled by OSIRIS-REx, had a diameter similar to the height of the Empire State Building, or 1,614 feet (492 meters). Kamoʻoalewa is a quasi-satellite, a type of near-Earth asteroid that orbits the sun but sticks close to Earth, coming within about 9 million miles (14.5 million kilometers) of our planet. 'Until Ben Sharkey … saw that it reflected light like the Moon, we didn't think there were chunks of the Moon out in near-Earth space,' Kareta said. 'The Moon's covered in craters, but who knew that the violent formation of those craters might toss tennis court sized rocks seemingly intact that we could find and study thousands or millions of years later?' Studying and sampling Kamoʻoalewa could help astronomers determine whether the space rock actually originated from the moon or if it just reflects light similarly, Kareta said. Kareta is also involved with a study led by Sharkey that will use the James Webb Space Telescope to study Kamoʻoalewa in more detail next year. 'If it's actually from the Moon, then we might be able to identify other lunar samples that have similar properties and help to get an idea of where it came from on the lunar surface,' Kareta said. 'If it just looks like the Moon but is actually from somewhere else, the sample will facilitate a radically more informed search for where Kamoʻoalewa actually came from.' The mission could also shed light on asteroids that can cause damage if they were to strike Earth. Kamoʻoalewa is comparable in size to the object that devastated Tunguska in Siberia over a century ago, Michel said. A roughly 98-foot-wide (30-meter-wide) asteroid struck the Podkamennaya Tunguska River in a remote Siberian forest of Russia in 1908, according to The Planetary Society. The event leveled trees and destroyed forests across 830 square miles (2,150 square kilometers). Orbiting and landing on such a small body is complicated, which is part of what makes the mission both interesting and risky, Michel said. 'To get into orbit, you really have to get very close, and even if you just follow it, the maneuvers remain very sensitive, because there's really very little gravity and its rapid rotation forgives no mistakes,' Michel said. 'Plus, the plan is to get a sample, so there are not many areas where the probe can land safely.' The space rock 311P/Pan-STARRS is one of the best-studied active asteroids, Kareta said. 'Even just (25) years ago, we didn't know there were active asteroids at all — scientists thought that only icy comets from the outer Solar System could produce comet-like tails, but it turns out that a couple of dozen asteroids do so as well without much or any ice involved,' Kareta said. Astronomers have come up with a number of hypotheses for why the object is throwing off dust, including posing the existence of pressure pockets that eject material and the idea that other objects could be impacting 311P/Pan-STARRS and releasing elements, Michel said. Flying by the active asteroid could show exactly what processes are creating the dusty tails streaming from the object and might reveal possibilities scientists haven't even considered, Kareta said. 'This will be the first time such an object is observed up close and we can determine which mechanism (there may be others) drives the activity,' Michel said. The data gathered by Tianwen-2 could enhance a wide range of studies of objects within the inner solar system, which includes Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and the asteroid belt, Kareta said. 'There's a tremendous amount we don't know about either object,' Kareta said. 'I don't think any spacecraft has ever gotten to its target and not found at least a few big surprises — I'm sure some of our current understanding for either object is completely wrong, and I'm excited to see how.'
NDTV
04-05-2025
- Science
- NDTV
'Minimoons': Rocks Circling Near Earth Could Be A Chunk Of The Moon
A whole population of 'minimoons' - tiny natural satellites - may be quietly circling near Earth, scientists now believe, after discovering a second Moon-origin rock drifting close to our planet. The newly observed object, named 2024 PT5, was spotted near Earth last August and is thought to be a lunar fragment, possibly blasted off the Moon during a massive impact long ago. This makes it only the second known piece of the Moon found orbiting in near-Earth space. "If there were only one object, that would be interesting but an outlier," said Teddy Kareta, a planetary scientist at Lowell Observatory in Arizona. "If there's two, we're pretty confident that's a population." The findings were published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters in January and presented in March at the 56th Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference in Texas. 2024 PT5 stood out when it was first observed by astronomers in South Africa, thanks to its unusually slow movement, just 2 metres per second relative to Earth. That made it a promising candidate for the Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey (MANOS), which focuses on finding asteroids that are easiest to reach with spacecraft. The rock, just 26 to 39 feet (8 to 12 metres) wide, didn't look like a typical asteroid. Mr Kareta and his team believe it may have been ejected from the Moon's surface during a violent impact. The discovery suggests that other such fragments might be hiding in near-Earth space. Earth regularly travels through a cloud of debris, both natural and man-made, as it orbits the Sun. Some of it is leftover rock from the early solar system, and scientists keep a close eye on these near-Earth objects (NEOs) in case any pose a threat. Material that gets blasted off the Moon during an impact usually stays close to Earth's orbit, especially the slower pieces. 2024 PT5 was briefly called a minimoon in September because it moved alongside Earth for a short time. But it didn't stay for long and eventually drifted away. Scientists think it will come close to Earth again in 2055. Within a week of the discovery, Mr Kareta and MANOS principal investigator Nick Moskovitz turned the Lowell Discovery Telescope toward 2024 PT5. After analysing the rock in visible and near-infrared light, they found its composition closely resembled moon rocks brought back by the Apollo missions and the Soviet Luna 24 mission. "It's like realising a crime scene has a totally new kind of evidence you didn't know you had before," Mr Kareta told "It might not help you solve the crime right away, but considering the importance of the task, new details to compare are always welcome." This is only the second known lunar fragment spotted in near-Earth space. The first, called Kamo'oalewa, was discovered in 2016 and linked to the Moon in 2021.
Yahoo
03-05-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
A whole 'population' of minimoons may be lurking near Earth, researchers say
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Earth's minimoon may be a chip off the old block: New research suggests that 2024 PT5 — a small, rocky body dubbed a "minimoon" during its discovery last year — may have been blown off the moon during a giant impact long ago, making it the second known sample traveling near Earth's orbit. The discovery hints at a hidden population of lunar fragments traveling near Earth. "If there were only one object, that would be interesting but an outlier," Teddy Kareta, a planetary scientist at Lowell Observatory in Arizona, said in March at the 56th annual Lunar and Planetary Sciences Conference in the Woodlands, Texas. "If there's two, we're pretty confident that's a population." Earth travels through and with a cloud of debris as the planet makes tracks around the sun. Some of that material is human-made — satellites and space junk. Other material is rocky debris left over from collisions in the early solar system. These near-Earth objects (NEOs) can be a concern, so they are tracked to ensure they are not a threat to our planet. Related: Just how many threatening asteroids are there? It's complicated. In August 2024, astronomers in South Africa identified a new rock, known as 2024 PT5, traveling near Earth. 2024 PT5 was moving slowly, with a relative velocity of only 4.5 mph (2 meters per second), making it a strong target for the Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey (MANOS). Only nine other asteroids have been seen traveling so slowly at their closest approach. Kareta, along with MANOS principal investigator Nick Moskovitz, also at Lowell, have been intrigued by the idea of finding moon rocks in space since just after the first such fragment was identified in 2021. MANOS is designed to hunt for and characterize the near-Earth asteroids that might be the easiest to visit with a spacecraft. According to Kareta, that meant the survey was ideal for looking at lunar castoffs. Within a week of 2024 PT5's discovery, they had turned the Lowell Discovery Telescope in the space rock's direction. After studying 2024 PT5 in both visible and near-infrared data, they concluded that it wasn't an ordinary asteroid. Its composition proved similar to that of rocks carried back to Earth during the Apollo program, as well as one returned by the Soviet Union's Luna 24. The researchers also found that 2024 PT5 was small — 26 to 39 feet (8 to 12 meters) in diameter. Kareta and his colleagues suspect that 2024 PT5 was excavated when something crashed into the moon. By studying the asteroid's composition, they hope to tie the material back to its source and perhaps even identify its parent crater. Cratering events are one of the most important processes that shape planetary bodies without tectonics or liquids to remold them. But impacts can be affected by a variety of variables, and understanding them can be a challenge. Matching debris to its crater can provide another way to understand what happens when two bodies collide. That's what makes identifying lunar rocks in space so intriguing. "It's like realizing a crime scene has a totally new kind of evidence you didn't know you had before," Kareta told by email. "It might not help you solve the crime right away, but considering the importance of the task, new details to compare are always welcome." Material from the Earth-moon system should be some of the easiest to fall into orbit near Earth. After an impactor collides with the moon, all but the fastest-moving material flung into space should continue traveling near our system. Although 2024 PT5 was dubbed a minimoon in September, it only briefly fell in line with the planet. Kareta compared it to two cars on the highway. Earth is blazing along in its own lane, while 2024 PT5 chugged along the interior path, closer to the sun. In 2024, the tiny chunk of rock changed lanes, falling into Earth's path at roughly the same speed. By the end of September, it had moved on, shifting outward. Earth left it behind, but on the solar race track, the pair should be parallel again in 2055, scientists estimate. 2024 PT5 is the second lunar fragment identified by researchers. Another small rock, Kamo'oalewa, was traced to the moon in 2021, five years after its discovery. That could hint at a new population, hidden in plain sight. Both objects are traveling in Earth-like orbits, but they don't have much else in common. Kamo'oalewa is larger and appears to have been battered by cosmic rays, solar radiation and other processes longer than 2024 PT5 has. That might suggest it has been in space longer, Kareta said. Their orbits are also a bit different. Kamo'oalewa's quasi-satellite orbit keeps it in Earth's immediate vicinity for several consecutive orbits, even though it isn't actually spinning around the planet. Unlike the lane-changing 2024 PT5, Kamo'oalewa is more like a car that stays one lane over, moving at roughly the same speed. Researchers are trying to match Kamo'oalewa to a crater. A recent study suggested that it could have come from a smashup that created Giordano Bruno crater, a 14-mile-wide (22 km) impact basin on the far side of the moon. Kareta is hopeful that more will be identified. While a single sample is an oddity, two could be part of a crowd. He suspects that some asteroids that have been identified as unusual may be lunar rocks in disguise. RELATED STORIES: —Goodnight moon! Astronomers snap photo of Earth's departing mini-moon —Earth's mini-moon has finally departed. Will it ever return as a 'second moon?' —Earth's recent asteroid visitor might've been a piece of the moon When the orbits of NEOs are calculated, their source region is often estimated based on their current travels. If some objects have been misclassified and their sources are incorrect, that could mean other aspects of their orbits are misunderstood. Although that could potentially increase the long-term chances of Earth being hit by an asteroid, Kareta said it is "almost certainly not" the case, "but we'll need to prove it." For now, Kareta and his colleagues will continue to use MANOS to search for other potential lunar fragments. He's hopeful that the doubled population will convince other researchers to take a closer look, too. Upcoming large-scale surveys — like the Vera Rubin Observatory, a ground-based telescope expected to see first light this year — should also help to reveal other dim objects. The research was published in January in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Yahoo
18-02-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Odds of Asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth go up again
Large telescopes around the world continue to track Asteroid 2024 YR4 before it fades out of view this spring, and the odds of the newly discovered asteroid hitting Earth just went up. However, even as the probability of the asteroid hitting Earth – which is now at 3.1% or a 1-in-32 chance – continues to slowly rise, so does the precision with which scientists know asteroid 2024 YR4's orbit, according to Lowell Observatory asteroid and comet expert Teddy Kareta. NASA and European Space Agency planetary defense offices are providing daily updates on Asteroid 2024 YR4. ESA updates its website once a day, and on Tuesday, the chances are at 2.8% that the asteroid will hit in 2032. NASA's Earth Impact Risk Summary puts the odds at just over 3%. Over the past two weeks, the chances have hovered around 2% until this update. In a few weeks, those odds are likely to drop. NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will use its Mid-InfaRed Instrument (MIRI) to study the thermal energy from Asteroid 2024 YR4, which is another data point in figuring out how the size of the asteroid. Asteroid 2024 Yr4 Is Unlikely To Hit Earth, But Here's What Would Happen If It Did The asteroid's size is very important, as the ESA points out: "The hazard represented by a 40-meter (130-foot) asteroid is very different from that of a 90-meter (300-foot) asteroid." Because of its orbit, the asteroid will fade from Earth's view over the next few months and won't become visible again until 2028. In the meantime, scientists are using powerful telescopes on Earth to monitor the asteroid before it moves behind the Sun. Kareta said that the full Moon this past week has limited observations. "The sky background is higher and thus finding small and faint objects is significantly tougher – but the Nordic Optical Telescope in La Palma and the Magdalena Ridge Observatory in New Mexico have started reporting positions again as we're moving away from the full Moon," Kareta said. "Lowell's big telescope, the Lowell Discovery Telescope, is similarly starting up again about now. As the object gets fainter and fainter, only bigger and bigger telescopes will be able to detect it from the ground." If you don't think this asteroid is getting enough attention, you can see a list of all the telescope observations since its discovery on the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center website. Nearly 400 observations have been recorded since late December. Asteroid 2024 YR4 was discovered on Dec. 27 by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) telescope in Río Hurtado, Chile. Since its discovery, the asteroid has warranted international attention and remains the highest asteroid threat on the Torino Impact Hazard Scale – even though there is a nearly 97% chance the asteroid will pass Earth safely in seven article source: Odds of Asteroid 2024 YR4 hitting Earth go up again
