Related papers: Identification of a Minimoon Fireball
We report on our detailed characterization of Earth's second known temporary natural satellite, or minimoon, asteroid 2020 CD3. An artificial origin can be ruled out based on its area-to-mass ratio and broadband photometry, which suggest…
The discovery of `Oumuamua and CNEOS 2014-01-08 allowed for a calibration of the impact rate of interstellar objects. We propose a new telescope in lunar orbit to study in real-time interstellar meteoroid impacts and to serve as a…
Taurid meteor shower produces prolonged but usually low activity every October and November. In some years, however, the activity is significantly enhanced. Previous studies based on long-term activity statistics concluded that the…
This work examines the plausibility of a lunar origin of natural objects that have a negative total energy (ET) with respect to the geocenter while within 3 Earth Hill radii (RH), a population that we will refer to as 'bound'. They are a…
Serendipitous stellar occultation search is so far the only way to detect the existence of very small, very dim, remote objects in the solar system. To date, however, there are only very few reported detections for trans-Neptunian objects…
The detection of fireballs streaks in astronomical imagery can be carried out by a variety of methods. The Desert Fireball Network--DFN--uses a network of cameras to track and triangulate incoming fireballs to recover meteorites with…
The goal of this work is to determine if the dynamics of individual Taurid Complex (TC) objects are consistent with the formation of the complex via fragmentation of a larger body, or if the current orbital affinities between the TC members…
We present the first set of trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs) observed on multiple nights in data taken from the DECam Ecliptic Exploration Project (DEEP). Of these 110 TNOs, 105 do not coincide with previously known TNOs and appear to be new…
Near-Earth objects (NEOs) have the potential to cause extensive damage and loss of life on Earth. Advancements in NEO discovery, trajectory prediction, and deflection technology indicate that an impact could be prevented, with sufficient…
Context: Until recently, camera networks designed for monitoring fireballs worldwide were not fully automated, implying that in case of a meteorite fall, the recovery campaign was rarely immediate. This was an important limiting factor as…
The stellar halo contains some of the oldest stars in the Milky Way galaxy and in the universe. The detections of `Oumuamua, CNEOS 2014-01-08, and interstellar dust serve to calibrate the production rate of interstellar objects. We study…
Small asteroids intersecting Earth's orbit can deliver extraterrestrial rocks to the Earth, called meteorites. This process is accompanied by a luminous phenomena in the atmosphere, called bolides or fireballs. Observations of bolides…
Recent time-domain surveys have revealed rapid transients that evolve on timescales of $\lesssim 10$ days, expanding the transient population into the short-duration regime. The transient search on even shorter timescales, particularly…
Automated asteroid detection routines set requirements on the number of detections, signal-to-noise ratio, and the linearity of the expected motion in order to balance completeness, reliability, and time delay after data acquisition when…
The Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor mission is a NASA observatory designed to discover and characterize near-Earth asteroids and comets. The mission's primary objective is to find the majority of objects large enough to cause severe…
It is customarily assumed that Earth-striking meteoroids are completely random, and that all the impacts must be interpreted as uncorrelated events distributed according to Poisson statistics. If this is correct, their impact dates must be…
Fireball networks establish the trajectories of meteoritic material passing through Earth's atmosphere, from which they can derive pre-entry orbits. Triangulated atmospheric trajectory data requires different orbit determination methods to…
We present new results of the observing program which is a part of the NEOROCKS project aimed to improve knowledge on physical properties of near-Earth Objects (NEOs) for planetary defense. Photometric observations were performed using the…
We report results of a four-year survey using Electron Multiplied Charged Coupled Device (EMCCD) cameras recording 34761 two-station video meteor events complete to a limiting magnitude of +6. The survey goal was to characterize probable…
In the past two decades an increasing interest in discovering Near Earth Objects has been noted in the astronomical community. Dedicated surveys have been operated for data acquisition and processing, resulting in the present discovery of…