Travelers in the Night Eps. 275E & 276E: Strange Comet & Screaming Aten

The 365 Days of Astronomy

Dr. Al Grauer hosts. Dr. Albert D. Grauer ( @Nmcanopus ) is an observational asteroid hunting astronomer. Dr. Grauer retired from the University of Arkansas at Little Rock in 2006. travelersinthenight.org

Today's 2 topics:

- C/2016 Q4 (Kowalski) is my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski's 14th comet discovery. It orbits the Sun once every 68 years on a cold path between Saturn and Neptune.

- I knew from the short regularly space streaks on the four images I had just obtained with the Catalina Sky Survey's 60 inch on Mount Lemmon, Arizona, I was looking at the path of an Earth approaching object. Turns out, this previously unknown object, is an unusual Aten astrtoid in that its orbit is inclined 38 degrees to the path of the Earth around the Sun. It's high relative speed is caused by the fact that our paths intersect at a large angle making it similar to two vehicles coming together on intersecting highways.

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