[meteorite-list] Astronomers Plan Last Look at Asteroid 1999 RQ36Before OSIRIS-REx Launch

[Becky and Kirk]

Thanks for the info Ron!

Kirk....
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Ron Baalke" <baalke at zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>
To: "Meteorite Mailing List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 14, 2011 11:05 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Astronomers Plan Last Look at Asteroid 1999 
RQ36Before OSIRIS-REx Launch


>
> FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
>
> FROM THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA
>
> Sept. 13, 2011
>
> This story and photos are online at: http://uanews.org/node/41796 .
>
> Contact information follows this story.
>
> Astronomers Plan Last Look at Asteroid Before OSIRIS-REx Launch
>
> Every six years, asteroid 1999 RQ36 nears the Earth - by cosmic 
> standards -
> and researchers are launching a global observation campaign to learn as 
> much
> as possible in preparation for the OSIRIS-REx, the first U.S.-led mission
> to bring back a sample of pristine asteroid material.
>
> Astronomers working on the U.S.' first asteroid-sample return mission - 
> the
> NASA mission named OSIRIS-REx - have begun a months-long observing 
> campaign
> that is the last chance to study their target asteroid from Earth before
> the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft launches in 2016.
>
> OSIRIS-REx is a quest to bring back to Earth a good-sized sample of an
> asteroid unaltered since solar system formation - a sample that very well
> could contain molecules that seeded life.
>
> Discovered in 1999, the OSIRIS-REx target asteroid, designated 1999 RQ36,
> nears Earth once every six years.  During the 2011 closest approach in 
> early
> September, it will be 10.9 million miles (17.5 million kilometers) away. 
> In
> 1999, closest approach was 1.4 million miles (2.3 million kilometers).
>
> "Six years sets the whole cadence for our mission," said Dante Lauretta of
> the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, deputy principal
> investigator for the OSIRIS-REx mission.
>
> "The next chance for ground-based telescopes to see this asteroid will be 
> in
> 2017, when it again nears Earth. Our spacecraft performs a gravity-assist
> at this time, giving it the kick it needs to rendezvous with the asteroid
> in 2019-20. The next chance for ground-based astronomy is 2023, the year 
> the
> spacecraft returns a sample of the asteroid to Earth."
>
> 1999 RQ36 last attracted astronomers' attention in 2005, when it passed 
> 3.1
> million miles (5 million kilometers) from Earth and appeared 30 times 
> brighter
> than it does this year.
>
> In 2005, Carl Hergenrother of the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory was
> searching with the 61-inch Kuiper telescope on Mt. Bigelow north of Tucson 
> for
> exciting targets for the proposed asteroid sample-return mission. He 
> observed
> 1999 RQ36.
>
> "Looking at my data, I saw this was a B-type asteroid, which is 
> carbonaceous
> and related to unusual outer main-belt asteroids that act like comets by
> outgassing volatiles," Hergenrother, who heads the OSIRIS-REx asteroid
> astronomy working group, said.
>
> After a quick search of the scientific literature, which turned up nothing
> on the object, he did a Google search. Jackpot.
>
> "Astronomers had been observing this asteroid, just not formally 
> publishing
> about it," Hergenrother said. "Their results were sitting on their 
> personal
> Web pages. They had radar images of it, visible and near-infrared 
> observations,
> confirmed it was a B-type (bluish) asteroid, got a pretty good light curve 
> and
> a rotation period, although the rotation period was wrong."
>
> Michael Drake of the UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, principal 
> investigator
> for OSIRIS-REx, urged Josh Emery, one of Drake's former students, now of
> the University of Tennessee and a co-investigator on OSIRIS-REx, to 
> observe
> 1999 RQ36 with the Spitzer Space Telescope. Emery won the telescope time,
> providing first observations of the asteroid at thermal infrared 
> wavelengths.
>
> "Coming out of 2006-07, 1999 RQ36 was probably the best-studied near-Earth
> asteroid out there that hadn't already been visited by a spacecraft,"
> Hergenrother said. "We lucked out in that not only is this an asteroid 
> that's
> relatively easy to get to, it is extremely interesting, exactly the kind 
> of
> object that we want for this mission."
>
> The international team of astronomers collaborating in the fall 
> 2011-spring
> 2012 observing campaign for 1999 RQ36 have time or are applying for time 
> on
> a network of telescopes operating in Arizona, the Canary Islands, Chile, 
> Puerto
> Rico and space.
>
> The new observations will not only influence mission planning and 
> development,
> but will directly address two key OSIRIS-REx mission goals, Lauretta said.
>
> One goal is to check results from ground-based observations against 
> results
> from OSIRIS-REx spacecraft observations that will be made in 2019-20 as 
> the
> spacecraft circles the asteroid for about 500 days.
>
> Another goal is to measure a slight force called the "Yarkovsky effect" to
> better understand the likelihood that potentially hazardous near-Earth
> asteroids, such as 1999 RQ36, will strike our planet, and when.
>
> # # #
>
> LINK:
>
> The University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory: 
> http://www.lpl.arizona.edu
>
> CONTACTS:
>
> Dante S. Lauretta
> UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
> 520-626-1138
> lauretta at lpl.arizona.edu
>
> Carl W. Hergenrother
> UA Lunar and Planetary Laboratory
> 520-237-6432
> chergen at lpl.arizona.edu
>
> Daniel Stolte
> University Communications
> The University of Arizona
> 520-626-4402
> stolte at email.arizona.edu
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