Planetary Defense with the eVscope Network – First results

An occultation by the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 1998 RO2 – Occultation par l’astéroïde géocroiseur 1998RO2

April 13, 2020

Did Proxima Centauri just call to say hello? Not really!

December 19, 2020

Published by Franck Marchis at July 6, 2020

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In March 2020, Joé Asencio joined the SETI Institute to develop the potential of the Unistellar network for Planetary Defense. Part of his work is to build the tools necessary to analyze astrometry and photometry of Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) and connect with our network of citizen astronomers. This is a summary of the first results obtained with the eVscope. Let’s first thank our backyard astronomers who contributed to this program: Sam Rihani, Kevin Cross, Jacques Bérard, Nicole Ruel, Masaaki Yamato, Gilles Cartry and the Unistellar team. Because of their contribution we have validated the use of the eVscope to contribute to this field of research. Here a summary…

Joé Asencio and two eVscopes

In less than a month of observation, we have already submitted more than 20 observations to the Minor Planet Center, or MPC, (asteroids 52768, 1984QY1, 913, 652, 3, 12…) confirming the potential of the eVscope to detect, but also to measure, accurately the location of an asteroid in the sky. The MPC will use our data to refine the orbit of those asteroids so in the future we can still find them. Keep in mind that because of the uncertainty on the location of an asteroid, it needs to be regularly observed to refine its orbit, that’s basically what we did with our citizen astronomers.

Asteroid 1998OR2 observed on April 24 from San Francisco, CA (V~11.7) observed with an eVscope from Franck Marchis on Vimeo.

Also, together with our network, we have measured the lightcurve of several asteroids, like Jubilatrix, Otila, Francis and Lemmelunda. Below some encouraging results taken from cities, so keep in mind that we are still improving our tools and we will probably get better lightcurves in the future.

(913) Otila is a main belt asteroid, 11km size. This lightcurve suggests a period of 4 hours (Delta magnitude ~0.3) and an average magnitude of 13.8.

Lightcurve of the main-belt asteroid (913) Otila observed with one eVscope

Otila seen in an eVscope on May 27 from San Francisco, CA.

(652) Jubilatrix is a main belt asteroid, 15km size, with a suggested period of 2.5 hours and a mean magnitude of 15.4

Lightcurve of the main-belt asteroid (652) Jubilatrix observed with one eVscope

(2050) Francis, main belt asteroid 8.5km size and a 15.6 magnitude. This lightcurve by Kevin is too short to detect a period. However, this first work is encouraging, so we are confident we can measure its lightcurve in the future under good conditions (better moon lunation and less background light).

Lightcurve of the main-belt asteroid (2050) Francis observed with one eVscope

(10132) Lemmelunda, is also a main belt asteroid, with a predicted magnitude around 16.1. Our lightcurve taken by Kevin also has a noisy background. However, it should be possible to get a hint of the period.

Lightcurve of the main-belt asteroid (10132) Lemmelunda observed with one eVscope

Next step is to continue to test the limit of the evscope on faint asteroids, like Francis and Lemmelunda from the city and the countryside for comparison. We will probably make some changes on the way data are being recorded, including for instance dark frames, and of course we will be able to combine soon observations from multiple eVscopes to improve the SNR and the sampling on the lightcurves. This is a work in progress, but we have learned a lot already in one month.

If you want to contribute, keep in mind that we will let announce new targets once a week on our social media. You can also check regularly the Asteroid Program page on your web site to get up-to-date information about our campaign.

Also, on the top of recording lightcurves, our goals is to confirm and characterize a NEO candidate (a new asteroid discovered by surveys like ATLAS, Catalina, PanSTARRS). As soon one of them will be observable by our network, we will send an alert to involve you, so we can confirm together the existence of a potentially hazardous asteroid, and protect our planet.

Clear Skies,

Franck M.

Franck Marchis

Dr. Franck Marchis is a Senior Scientist and Science Outreach Manager at the SETI Institute and Chief Scientific Officer at Unistellar. Marchis earned his PhD in Astrophysics at the Université Paul Sabatier, France, in 2000. He is a planetary astronomer with 22 years of experience in academic, international and non-profit scientific institutions and has conducted multiple research projects in a wide range of areas. He is best known for his discovery and characterization of multiple asteroids, his study of Io volcanism and imaging of exoplanets, planets around other stars. In April 2007, the asteroid numbered 1989SO8 was named “(6639) Marchis” in honor of his work in the field of multiple asteroids. More recently, he has been also involved in the definition of new generation of AOs for 8 -10 m class telescopes and future Extremely Large Telescopes. He has developed algorithms to process and enhance the quality of images, both astronomical and biological. His currently involved in the Gemini Planet Imager Exoplanet Survey, which consists in imaging exoplanets using an extreme AO system for the Gemini South telescope. This new instrument is capable of imaging and recording spectra of young Jupiter-like exoplanets orbiting around nearby stars.

Planetary Defense with the eVscope Network – First results

An occultation by the Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 1998 RO2 – Occultation par l’astéroïde géocroiseur 1998RO2

Did Proxima Centauri just call to say hello? Not really!

Franck Marchis

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