An out-of-this-world record for Faulkes Telescope South (Forwarded)
- From: Andrew Yee <ayee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 30 May 2008 16:43:17 GMT
Faulkes Telescope Project
Cardiff, U.K.
28 May 2008
An out-of-this-world record for FTS!
A British amateur astronomer has discovered the fastest rotating natural
object known in our Solar System, using data from FT South.
His observations, made using a telescope normally shared by school
students and professional scientists as part of the Las Cumbres
Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGTN), have proved that the
newly-discovered asteroid, 2008 HJ is revolving once every 42.7 seconds,
classifying it is as a 'superfast rotator'. His discovery will boost our
sparse knowledge of near Earth asteroids and is another successful find
for the Faulkes Telescope near-Earth asteroid project.
The folded lightcurve of 2008 HJ
The astronomer Richard Miles made his exciting discovery on Tuesday 29th
April using the Faulkes Telescope South (located at Siding Spring,
Australia), which he operated remotely via the Internet from his home in
Dorset. Confirmation of his discovery was formally announced by the
International Astronomical Union on Thursday 22nd May. The previous record
holder was asteroid 2000 DO8, discovered eight years ago and found to
rotate once every 78 seconds. The Science and Technology Facilities
Council (STFC) was involved in the initial set-up of the Faulkes Telescope
Project and continues to provide support.
This latest discovery is the most recent outcome of a new project to use
the Faulkes Telescopes, situated in Hawaii and Australia, to survey the
properties of small (<150-metre) near-Earth asteroids. UK schools and
colleges have already participated in the project, which in April had an
early success having found that asteroid 2008 GP3 rotates once every 11.8
minutes. Asteroid 2008 HJ was only the fourth object observed as part of
this study.
The observations suggest that 2008 HJ is a compact stony object some 12m x
24m in size, smaller than a tennis court yet probably having a mass in
excess of 5,000 tonnes. It was moving at almost 45 kilometres per second
(more than 100,000 mph) when it hurtled past the Earth in late April.
Despite being classified as a "near-Earth asteroid", it came no closer
than 1 million km and never posed a threat to our planet.
Dr Paul Roche, the director of the Faulkes Telescope Project at Cardiff
University, said: "A discovery like this demonstrates the capabilities of
amateur astronomers and school students to produce exciting scientific
results if given the right tools. By providing Richard with access to a
big telescope we have smashed the previous record, and opened up the
search for even faster objects to UK amateur astronomers and school
students. This helps to put all that classroom science, maths and IT to
real use!"
The early success for the Faulkes Telescope near-Earth asteroid project
bodes well for the future and should prove especially encouraging to
schools, colleges and other amateur astronomers looking to participate.
It now appears that the chances of success are high and one challenge will
be to find objects spinning even faster than 2008 HJ. Cooperation between
all the observing groups, whether they are astronomers or schools
students, will be essential if asteroid rotation rates are to be
accurately identified.
Dr Petr Pravec, an astronomer at the Ondrejov Observatory (Czech Republic)
and an expert in this field, commented: "A period of 42.7 seconds for an
asteroid with a size of about 20 meters is perfectly consistent with
theory there may be a significant population of asteroids measuring up
to a few tens of metres across, rotating in less than a minute, that have
not been observed until now".
Our knowledge of the near-Earth population of small asteroids is very
sparse, so schools and others can contribute directly to our understanding
of these nearest neighbours of ours. It is believed that most of these
objects are probably fragments ejected from collisions between larger
bodies which took place some time in the distant past. However, other
objects may have originated when the solar nebula was formed over 4.6
billion years ago.
The 2-metre FT South is part of the Las Cumbres Observatory Global
Telescope Network, and the Faulkes Telescope Project is the educational
partner of LCOGTN in the UK.
[NOTE: An image supporting this release is available at
http://faulkes-telescope.com/files/faulkes-telescope.com/image/2008HJ_lightcurve.jpg
(658KB)]
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