Discoveries using the telescopes on Mauna Kea

[HereOnThePrimalEdge]

Observatories around the world maintain contact with each other so asteroid sightings, particularly those which might pass near Earth can be confirmed, analyzed, and details about the object refined. Pan-STARRS on Maui is one telescope involved, as is NASA’s Infrared Telescope on Mauna Kea. Let’s hope if there’s ever a particularly large asteroid headed on a collision course with Earth, that a tree on Big Island doesn’t fall over:

Then, Pan-STARRS1 automatically detected the asteroid on September 25, 2017; had it not already been detected in 2012, this would have been the first time anyone had seen the asteroid, marking the start of the simulation. Followup observations allowed astronomers to determine its rotational period, its maximum size, and to which class of asteroids it belonged. Had the asteroid been a real threat, these details would allow researchers to model where on Earth the rock might hit and how much damage it would cause. They also performed a continually updating risk assessment based on the rock’s size and composition.

The exercise was largely a success, with a few exceptions. “There were definite successes but there were some things that went spectacularly wrong,” Alessondra “Sondy” Springmann, researcher in the doctoral program at the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, told Gizmodo.

Springmann noted two main issues: a mountain-wide power outage from a fallen tree prevented the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility (NASA IRTF) on Hawaii’s Mauna Kea from observing the asteroid...
https://gizmodo.com/astronomers-perform-...1832998125