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7968 Elst–Pizarro
Comet Elst–Pizarro is a body that displays characteristics of both asteroids and comets, and is the prototype of active asteroids. Its orbit keeps it within the asteroid belt, yet it displayed a dust tail like a comet while near perihelion in 1996, 2001, and 2007. * As a comet it is formally designated 133P/Elst–Pizarro. * As an asteroid it is designated 7968 Elst–Pizarro. Elst–Pizarro was reported in 1979 as minor planet , with its image on a photographic plate being completely stellar in appearance. Its orbit remains entirely within the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, with eccentricity 0.165, typical of a minor planet in the asteroid belt. However, the images taken by Eric W. Elst and Guido Pizarro in 1996, when it was near perihelion, clearly show a cometary tail. Since this is not normal behaviour for asteroids, it is suspected that Elst–Pizarro has a different, probably icy, composition. The cometary nature of Elst–Pizarro was first discovered when a linear dust fea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
La Silla Observatory
La Silla Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Several other telescopes are also located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The observatory is one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and was the first in Chile to be used by ESO. The La Silla telescopes and instruments are located 150 km northeast of La Serena, on the outskirts of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest and most remote areas in the world. Like other observatories in this region, La Silla is far from sources of light pollution and, like the Paranal Observatory—home to the Very Large Telescope—it has some of the darkest night skies on Earth. History Following the decision in 1963 to approve Chile as the site for the ESO observatory, scouting parties were sent to various locations to assess their suitability. The site that was decided upon was La Silla in the southern part of the Atacama Des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal snow), but no liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. It is half as wide as Earth or twice the Moon, with a diameter of , and has a surface area the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Open University
The Open University (OU) is a Public university, public research university and the largest university in the United Kingdom by List of universities in the United Kingdom by enrolment, number of students. The majority of the OU's undergraduate students are based in the United Kingdom and principally study off-campus; many of its courses (both undergraduate and postgraduate education, postgraduate) can also be studied anywhere in the world. There are also a number of full-time postgraduate research students based on the university campus at Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Walton Hall, Milton Keynes, Buckinghamshire, where they use the staff facilities for research, as well as more than 1,000 members of academic and research staff and over 2,500 administrative, operational and support staff. The OU was established in 1969 and was initially based at Alexandra Palace, north London, using the television studios and editing facilities which had been vacated by the BBC. The first students ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Castalia (spacecraft)
''Castalia'' is a proposed mission concept for a robotic spacecraft to explore the main-belt comet 7968 Elst–Pizarro and make the first ''in situ'' measurements of water in the asteroid belt, and thus, help solve the mystery of the origin of Earth's water. The lead is Colin Snodgrass, from The Open University in UK. ''Castalia'' was proposed in 2015 and 2016 to the European Space Agency within the Cosmic Vision programme missions M4 and M5, but it was not selected. Because of the construction time required and orbital dynamics, a launch date of October 2028 is proposed. Overview Main-belt comets (MBCs) are a recently discovered population of apparently icy bodies within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, which may represent the remnants of the population which supplied the early Earth with water. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Astrometric
Astrometry is a branch of astronomy that involves precise measurements of the positions and movements of stars and other celestial bodies. It provides the kinematics and physical origin of the Solar System and this galaxy, the Milky Way. History The history of astrometry is linked to the history of star catalogues, which gave astronomers reference points for objects in the sky so they could track their movements. This can be dated back to the ancient Greek astronomer Hipparchus, who around 190 BC used the catalogue of his predecessors Timocharis and Aristillus to discover Earth's precession. In doing so, he also developed the brightness scale still in use today. Hipparchus compiled a catalogue with at least 850 stars and their positions. Hipparchus's successor, Ptolemy, included a catalogue of 1,022 stars in his work the '' Almagest'', giving their location, coordinates, and brightness. In the 10th century, the Iranian astronomer Abd al-Rahman al-Sufi carried out observation ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
118401 LINEAR
118401 LINEAR ( provisional designation , comet designation 176P/LINEAR) is an active asteroid and main-belt comet(older 2010 site) that was discovered by the (LINEAR) 1-metre telescopes in on September 7, 1999. (118401) LINEAR was discovered to be cometary on November 26, 2005, by [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
60558 Echeclus
60558 Echeclus is a centaur, approximately in diameter , located in the outer Solar System. It was discovered by Spacewatch in 2000 and initially classified as a minor planet with provisional designation (also written 2000 EC98). Research in 2001 by Rousselot and Petit at the Besançon observatory in France indicated that it was not a comet, but in December 2005 a cometary coma was detected. In early 2006 the Committee on Small Bodies Nomenclature (CSBN) gave it the cometary designation 174P/Echeclus. It last came to perihelion in April 2015, and was expected to reach about apparent magnitude 16.7 near opposition in September 2015. Name Echeclus is a centaur in Greek mythology. 60558 Echeclus is only the second comet (after Chiron) that was named as a minor planet, rather than after the name of its discoverer. Chiron is also a centaur; other centaurs are being observed for signs of a cometary coma. Besides Echeclus, eight other objects are cross-listed as both comets an ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
4015 Wilson–Harrington
4015 Wilson–Harrington is an active asteroid known both as comet 107P/Wilson–Harrington and as asteroid 4015 Wilson–Harrington. It passed from Earth on 20 July 2022 and then passed perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) on 24 August 2022. It seldom gets brighter than apparent magnitude 16. It will return to perihelion on 25 November 2026. Observational history This near-Earth object is considered both an Apollo asteroid with the designation ''4015 Wilson–Harrington'' and a periodic comet known as ''Comet Wilson–Harrington'' or ''107P/Wilson–Harrington''. It was initially discovered in 1949 as a comet and then lost to further observations. Thirty years later it was rediscovered as an asteroid, after which it took over a decade to determine that these observations were of the same object. Therefore, it has both a comet designation and an asteroid designation, and with a name length of 17 characters it is currently the asteroid with the longest name, having one m ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
2060 Chiron
2060 Chiron is a ringed small Solar System body in the outer Solar System, orbiting the Sun between Saturn and Uranus. Discovered in 1977 by Charles Kowal, it was the first-identified member of a new class of objects now known as centaurs—bodies orbiting between the asteroid belt and the Kuiper belt. 944 Hidalgo, discovered in 1920, also fits this definition, but was not identified as belonging to a distinct population. Chiron is named after the centaur Chiron in Greek mythology. Although it was initially called an asteroid and classified only as a minor planet with the designation "2060 Chiron", in 1989 it was found to exhibit behavior typical of a comet. Today it is classified as both a minor planet and a comet, and is accordingly also known by the cometary designation 95P/Chiron. More recently, a series of occultation events through the 2010s and early 2020s revealed that Chiron hosts rings, making it one of four minor planets and the only known comet to host a ring sys ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apsis
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 t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
ESO 1-metre Schmidt Telescope
La Silla Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Several other telescopes are also located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The observatory is one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere and was the first in Chile to be used by ESO. The La Silla telescopes and instruments are located 150 km northeast of La Serena, on the outskirts of the Atacama Desert, one of the driest and most remote areas in the world. Like other observatories in this region, La Silla is far from sources of light pollution and, like the Paranal Observatory—home to the Very Large Telescope—it has some of the darkest night skies on Earth. History Following the decision in 1963 to approve Chile as the site for the ESO observatory, scouting parties were sent to various locations to assess their suitability. The site that was decided upon was La Silla in the southern part of the Atacama Des ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
