|
1915 Quetzálcoatl
1915 Quetzálcoatl, provisional designation , is a very eccentric, stony asteroid classified as near-Earth object, about half a kilometer in diameter. It was discovered on 9 March 1953, by American astronomer Albert George Wilson at Palomar Observatory, California. It was named for Quetzalcoatl from Aztec mythology. Orbit and classification ''Quetzálcoatl'' is an Amor asteroid – a subgroup of near-Earth asteroids that approach the orbit of Earth from beyond, but do not cross it – and a member of the Alinda family of highly eccentric asteroids. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.1–4.0 AU with a period of around 4 years. The osculating orbit as of 2017 has a period just over 4 years, but the period varies because Quetzálcoatl is near the 3:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter (and possibly because it is near the 1:4 resonance with Earth). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.57 and an inclination of 20 ° with respect to the ecliptic. When it was discovered in March ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Albert George Wilson
Albert George Wilson (July 28, 1918 – August 27, 2012) was an American astronomer and a discoverer of minor planets. He was born in Houston, Texas. He received his Ph.D. in mathematics from Caltech in 1947; his thesis title was ''Axially Symmetric Thermal Stresses in a Semi-Infinite Solid'' advised by Harry Bateman. In 1949, he accepted a job at Palomar Observatory, and led the Palomar Sky Survey. In 1953, he became assistant director of Lowell Observatory, and served as director from 1954 to 1957. He later worked at Rand Corporation and other private sector positions. In 1962, he became founding editor of the astronomical magazine ''Icarus''. In 1966, he accepted the position of associate director of McDonnell-Douglas Corporation Advanced Research Laboratories (DARL), which he held from 1966 until 1972. Wilson then became an adjunct professor at USC, teaching courses in philosophy and science until his retirement. After retiring Wilson was associated with the ''Institute on ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Orbital Resonance
In celestial mechanics, orbital resonance occurs when orbiting bodies exert regular, periodic gravitational influence on each other, usually because their orbital periods are related by a ratio of small integers. Most commonly, this relationship is found between a pair of objects (binary resonance). The physical principle behind orbital resonance is similar in concept to pushing a child on a swing, whereby the orbit and the swing both have a natural frequency, and the body doing the "pushing" will act in periodic repetition to have a cumulative effect on the motion. Orbital resonances greatly enhance the mutual gravitational influence of the bodies (i.e., their ability to alter or constrain each other's orbits). In most cases, this results in an ''unstable'' interaction, in which the bodies exchange momentum and shift orbits until the resonance no longer exists. Under some circumstances, a resonant system can be self-correcting and thus stable. Examples are the 1:2:4 resona ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minor Planet
According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor planet'', but that year's meeting IAU definition of planet, reclassified minor planets and comets into dwarf planets and Small Solar System body, small Solar System bodies (SSSBs).Press release, IAU 2006 General Assembly: Result of the IAU Resolution votes International Astronomical Union, August 24, 2006. Accessed May 5, 2008. In contrast to the eight official planets of the Solar System, all minor planets fail to clearing the neighborhood, clear their orbital neighborhood. Minor planets include asteroids (near- ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radar Cross-section
Radar cross-section (RCS), denoted σ, also called radar signature, is a measure of how detectable an object is by radar. A larger RCS indicates that an object is more easily detected. An object reflects a limited amount of radar energy back to the source. The factors that influence this include: *the material with which the target is made; *the size of the target relative to the wavelength of the illuminating radar signal; *the absolute size of the target; *the incident angle (angle at which the radar beam hits a particular portion of the target, which depends upon the shape of the target and its orientation to the radar source); *the reflected angle (angle at which the reflected beam leaves the part of the target hit; it depends upon incident angle); *the polarization of the radiation transmitted and received with respect to the orientation of the target. While important in detecting targets, strength of emitter and distance are not factors that affect the calculation o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Arecibo Observatory
The Arecibo Observatory, also known as the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center (NAIC) and formerly known as the Arecibo Ionosphere Observatory, is an observatory in Barrio Esperanza, Arecibo, Puerto Rico owned by the US National Science Foundation (NSF). The observatory's main instrument was the Arecibo Telescope, a spherical reflector dish built into a natural sinkhole, with a cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals mounted above the dish. Completed in 1963, it was the world's largest single-aperture telescope for 53 years, surpassed in July 2016 by the Five-hundred-meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) in China. On August 10 and November 6, 2020, two of the receiver's support cables broke and the NSF announced that it would decommission the telescope. The telescope collapsed on December 1, 2020. In 2022, the NSF announced the telescope will not be rebuilt, with an educational facility to be established on the site. T ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Radar
Radar is a system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, map weather formations, and terrain. The term ''RADAR'' was coined in 1940 by the United States Navy as an acronym for "radio detection and ranging". The term ''radar'' has since entered English and other languages as an anacronym, a common noun, losing all capitalization. A radar system consists of a transmitter producing electromagnetic waves in the radio or microwave domain, a transmitting antenna, a receiving antenna (often the same antenna is used for transmitting and receiving) and a receiver and processor to determine properties of the objects. Radio waves (pulsed or continuous) from the transmitter reflect off the objects and return to the receiver, giving ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astronomical Albedo
Albedo ( ; ) is the fraction of sunlight that is diffusely reflected by a body. It is measured on a scale from 0 (corresponding to a black body that absorbs all incident radiation) to 1 (corresponding to a body that reflects all incident radiation). ''Surface albedo'' is defined as the ratio of radiosity ''J''e to the irradiance ''E''e (flux per unit area) received by a surface. The proportion reflected is not only determined by properties of the surface itself, but also by the spectral and angular distribution of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface. These factors vary with atmospheric composition, geographic location, and time (see position of the Sun). While directional-hemispherical reflectance factor is calculated for a single angle of incidence (i.e., for a given position of the Sun), albedo is the directional integration of reflectance over all solar angles in a given period. The temporal resolution may range from seconds (as obtained from flux measurements) to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotation Period
In astronomy, the rotation period or spin period of a celestial object (e.g., star, planet, moon, asteroid) has two definitions. The first one corresponds to the '' sidereal rotation period'' (or ''sidereal day''), i.e., the time that the object takes to complete a full rotation around its axis relative to the background stars ( inertial space). The other type of commonly used "rotation period" is the object's '' synodic rotation period'' (or ''solar day''), which may differ, by a fraction of a rotation or more than one rotation, to accommodate the portion of the object's orbital period around a star or another body during one day. Measuring rotation For solid objects, such as rocky planets and asteroids, the rotation period is a single value. For gaseous or fluid bodies, such as stars and giant planets, the period of rotation varies from the object's equator to its pole due to a phenomenon called differential rotation. Typically, the stated rotation period for a giant pl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
S-type Asteroid
S-type (stony-type or silicaceous-type) asteroids are asteroids with a spectral type that is indicative of a siliceous (i.e. stony) mineralogical composition, hence the name. They have relatively high density. Approximately 17% of asteroids are of this type, making it the second-most common after the carbonaceous C-type. Characteristics S-type asteroids, with an astronomical albedo of typically 0.20, are moderately bright and consist mainly of iron- and magnesium-silicates. They are dominant in the inner part of the asteroid belt within 2.2 AU, common in the central belt within about 3 AU, but become rare farther out. The largest are 3 Juno (about 240–250 km across) and 15 Eunomia (230 km), with other large S-types being 29 Amphitrite, 532 Herculina and 7 Iris. These largest S-types are visible in 10x50 binoculars at most oppositions; the brightest, 7 Iris, can occasionally become brighter than +7.0, which is a higher magnitude than any asteroid except ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Minimum Orbit Intersection Distance
Minimum orbit intersection distance (MOID) is a measure used in astronomy to assess potential close approaches and collision risks between astronomical objects. It is defined as the distance between the closest points of the osculating orbits of two bodies. Of greatest interest is the risk of a collision with Earth. Earth MOID is often listed on comet and asteroid databases such as the JPL Small-Body Database. MOID values are also defined with respect to other bodies as well: Jupiter MOID, Venus MOID and so on. An object is classified as a potentially hazardous object (PHO) – that is, posing a possible risk to Earth – if, among other conditions, its Earth MOID is less than 0.05 AU. For more massive bodies than Earth, there is a potentially notable close approach with a larger MOID; for instance, Jupiter MOIDs less than 1 AU are considered noteworthy since Jupiter is the most massive planet.Bruce Koehn,Minimum Orbital Intersection Distance, Lowell Observatory, retrieved ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perihelion
An apsis (; ) is the farthest or nearest point in the orbit of a planetary body about its primary body. The line of apsides (also called apse line, or major axis of the orbit) is the line connecting the two extreme values. Apsides pertaining to orbits around different bodies have distinct names to differentiate themselves from other apsides. Apsides pertaining to geocentric orbits, orbits around the Earth, are at the farthest point called the ''apogee'', and at the nearest point the ''perigee'', like with orbits of satellites and the Moon around Earth. Apsides pertaining to orbits around the Sun are named ''aphelion'' for the farthest and ''perihelion'' for the nearest point in a heliocentric orbit. Earth's two apsides are the farthest point, ''aphelion'', and the nearest point, ''perihelion'', of its orbit around the host Sun. The terms ''aphelion'' and ''perihelion'' apply in the same way to the orbits of Jupiter and the other planets, the comets, and the asteroids of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stellar Magnitude
Apparent magnitude () is a measure of the brightness of a star, astronomical object or other celestial objects like artificial satellites. Its value depends on its intrinsic luminosity, its distance, and any extinction of the object's light caused by interstellar dust along the line of sight to the observer. Unless stated otherwise, the word ''magnitude'' in astronomy usually refers to a celestial object's apparent magnitude. The magnitude scale likely dates to before the ancient Roman astronomer Claudius Ptolemy, whose star catalog popularized the system by listing stars from 1st magnitude (brightest) to 6th magnitude (dimmest). The modern scale was mathematically defined to closely match this historical system by Norman Pogson in 1856. The scale is reverse logarithmic: the brighter an object is, the lower its magnitude number. A difference of 1.0 in magnitude corresponds to the brightness ratio of \sqrt /math>, or about 2.512. For example, a magnitude 2.0 star is 2.512 ti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
