On June 30, people around the world celebrate Asteroid Day. That makes these warm summer nights the perfect time to seek out some of the most elusive objects in our solar system. All month long, we’re dedicating our weekly observing challenges to asteroids. Our new crop of observing targets even includes a Potentially Hazardous…
Astronomers around the world celebrate Asteroid Day on June 30, but here at Unistellar, we’re celebrating with an entire month of asteroid related activities! This week, our targets are all asteroid occultations! An asteroid occultation is an asteroid passing in front of a star from our perspective on Earth. These space rocks are great…
In the early morning of May 9, 2021, Unistellar citizen astronomers successfully contributed to the detection of Trojan asteroid Patroclus by occultation. Patroclus’ shadow was traveling at 17.5 km/s along a path across the United States, from California to Wisconsin and the event lasted less than 6 seconds. Later this year, the…
This October, NASA will launch Lucy, the very first space probe to visit the trojan asteroid population. Trojans are known as “time capsules from the birth of our Solar System.” On the night of May 8 to 9, 2021, you, as a citizen astronomer, will have a unique opportunity to contribute to space exploration. The…
If you live within a 100 mile-wide path across the US from San Francisco, CA to Tucson, AZ, you will have the opportunity to observe the short disappearance of a star and help make new discoveries about a main-belt asteroid! If you detect this asteroid, we may be able to accurately derive its orbit,…
This month Unistellar citizen astronomers across North America will have the opportunity to detect a special type of asteroid with their eVscope! On the morning of April 7, a Trojan asteroid known as 9142 Rhesus will occult (pass in front of) a star from our view here on Earth. It will be visible across…
Yes, asteroids do have moons! In fact, 194 asteroids within the asteroid belt, which is located roughly between Mars and Jupiter, have been discovered to have moons so far. Throughout our solar system, hundreds of small bodies have been discovered to have moons. The first asteroid discovered to have a moon was 243…