Daily Archives: March 6, 2009

2009 dd45, asteroid, astronomy, new york times

Discussing the Lure of Asteroids

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New York Times-style

Woohoo!  Check out the Op-Ed discussion page for the New York Times page online — it contains a number of astronomy luminaries, including yours truly, discussing the lure of rocks from outer space!  This all follows on the heels of world-wide interest in the quick flyby of near-Earth asteroid 2009 DD45 earlier this week. What surprised me was that the media reaction was not what it had been in the past — breathless hype about how we’re under bombardment from space.  It was largely measured and analytical, and included some cute headlines joking around about ‘Roid Rage (as in “‘Roid Rages Past Earth”). The best views of it came from this video, provided by an observer in Canberra, Australia. (You have to watch it for a little bit to catch the motion of the asteroid across the sky.)

Truth is, as I write in my entry, asteroids grab our attention, especially when they get close to the planet. For scientists, they’re the chance to study the leftovers of solar system creation, no matter where they are in the solar system. So, head over and read the NYT discussion. It was fun to participate in and I thank the editors of the Times for asking me to join in the discussion!  And, for you readers coming over to visit my page from the  Times — welcome to my humble blog!

exoplanets, exploration, Kepler mission, NASA

Keplerian Wishes

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Tonight’s the Night

A portrait of the Milky Way by space artist Jon Lomberg, showing Keplers search space for extrasolar planets. Used courtesy of the Kepler Mission and Jon Lomberg (www.jonlomberg.com). (Click to embiggen.)
A portrait of the Milky Way by space artist Jon Lomberg, showing Kepler's search space for extrasolar planets. Used courtesy of the Kepler Mission and Jon Lomberg (www.jonlomberg.com). (Click to embiggen.)

The NASA Kepler mission is on schedule for launch tonight (Friday, March 6) at 10:48 p.m. EST. (04:48 GMT). So far, everything looks good and we’re all hoping for a flawless liftoff and perfect deployment of this lean, mean exoplanet-hunting machine.

The Kepler mission has a fine website with a skajillion details about this telescope and the science it will do. I’m quite excited about its chances for finding Earth-like planets orbiting other stars and I think within a few years we’ll know just how “alone”  Earth really is in our neck of of the galaxy neighborhood.

This is the tenth of NASA’s Discovery missions program — all of which have specific goals for exploration of space. For example, Mars Pathfinder, Genesis, NEAR, MESSENGER, Stardust, Deep Impact, DAWN, GRAIL, and Lunar Prospector are also in the Discovery mission “chain.”   So, here’s to Kepler, the latest “discoverer” to head out there and report back to Earth on what it finds.