A group of club members were among the 68 volunteers in 36 teams that participated in a Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) occultation campaign to assist the NASA – SwRI LUCY mission. The LUCY mission will visit Trojan asteroids, which are asteroids that Jupiter herds in its orbit ahead and behind of the planet. The occultation campaign observed one of those asteroids, actually a pair, as they crossed in front of a star, which refined the asteroids’ orbit and shape, helping SwRI plan for the encounter in 2033.
Tom Heisey gave a presentation on the mission, occultations, and the campaign at last Thursday’s meeting. It’s a fascinating area of citizen science that professional astronomers are not equipped or prepared to do and we gain shape and size data accurate to 1-2 km on small bodies 300-700 million miles away!
To learn more, read the PDF of Tom’s presentation, which includes photos and preliminary results from the campaign:
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