Astronomers from the Keck Telescope in Hawaii will be trying to observe Asteroid 2005 YU55 as it flies away from Earth. A live webcast from Keck starts about the same time this article is being published, starting no later than 9 pm U.S. PST on Nov. 8, or Midnight EST/ 0500 UT on Wednesday, Nov. 9. Indications are the webcast might start a little late because of fog on Mauna Kea.
Their hope is to get infrared images and perhaps a three-dimensional view of the asteroid with one of the world’s largest optical/infrared telescopes. The observing run is being webcast live on UStream from the Keck II Remote Operations room in Kamuela, Hawaii. They also are hoping to be able to look for moons around the asteroid. About 20% of asteroids have “moons” orbiting them.
At the helm of the 10-meter Keck II telescope and using Keck’s pioneering adaptive optics to view YU55 will be asteroid investigators William Merline and Peter Tamblyn of Southwest Research Institute, in Boulder, Colorado, and Chris Neyman of Keck Observatory.
It’s difficult to actually visualise a universe that is changing. Things tend to happen at…
We are all very familiar with the concept of the Earth’s magnetic field. It turns…
Solar Sails are an enigmatic and majestic way to travel across the gulf of space.…
Scientists detected the first long-predicted gravitational wave in 2015, and since then, researchers have been…
Well over 5,000 planets have been found orbiting other star systems. One of the satellites…
Over the last few years I have been renovating my home. Building on Earth seems…