New Zealand's 4.5 million people are concentrated in three major population centers which to various degrees suffer from the modern plague of light pollution. However, most of New Zealand's large rural areas and land reserves, covering an area as large as the UK, have unpolluted natural night skies. A completely unique place to experience New Zealand's natural night sky is the Aotea [ Ah - yoh - tee - ah]-Great Barrier Island International Dark Sky Sanctuary. It encompasses New Zealand's, 110 square mile, sixth largest island, which is located about 62 miles from central Auckland. It is easily accessible by boat or a short airline flight. The island's 1000 residents are employed by agriculture and tourism. They value the natural night sky and function without externally generated electricity or street lights and fully support the preservation of their prestine night sky. In the daytime Great Barrier Island offers wonderful beaches and hikes. When the sun sets the night sky becomes alive with its own natural lights. Night sky measurements by Auckland Astronomer Nalayini [ Na - laa - i - ni] Davies and her collaborators have proved that the Great Barrier Island's natural night skies are second to none on planet Earth. Using the unaided eye, a set of binoculars, or a small telescope an observer on the Great Barrier Island is treated to spectacular views of the center of the Milky Way, the clouds of Magellan the nearest galaxies to us, the nearest stars, as well as numerous star clusters, meteors, comets, and other wonders of the natural night sky. Perhaps this unique spot deserves a place on your bucket list.

It is possible the object creating the Tunguska event in Russia 1908 which knocked down 80 million trees over an area about twice the size of New York City was a fragment of a comet or asteroid. The International Asteroid Warning Network 2025 campaign to track Comet 3L/Atlas prepares the worlds observatories for the eventual time when a comet fragment has our number on it.

In November of 2006, University of Arizona's Spacewatch astronomers on Kitt Peak discovered a faint moving point of light in the night sky which appeared to be a garden variety main belt asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. The Minor Planet Center calculated it's orbit and gave it the name 2006 VW139. Five years later when it again moved closest to the Sun the Pan-STARRS group in Hawaii discovered that 2006 VW139 is surrounded by a gas cloud like a comet and it was given a comet designation, 288P. My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Steve Larson is a member of the team of astronomers who use the Hubble Space Telescope to observe asteroids which have comet like burps. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope between August 2016 and January 2017 clearly show 288P to be two similar, mile diameter, asteroids orbiting each other about 60 miles apart, surrounded by a gas cloud, as they move about the Sun. The Hubble team estimates that about 5,000 years ago this strange object was formed when a rapidly rotating comet nucleus came apart into two large pieces. It's gas cloud is likely to come from volatile ices like carbon dioxide and water vapor which were liberated by solar heating. Objects like this one are very interesting since they may have had a role in bringing water to a bone dry Earth in the early days of our solar system.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin was asteroid hunting in the evening twilight with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon Arizona when he spotted an unknown object in the constellation of Lyra. The largest telescopes on Earth will likely track David's discovery until it becomes too faint to observe in 2027 and catch it again when it again becomes bright enough to track in 2050. Fortunately it is extremely unlikely that it will strike Earth when it again comes close to our home planet in 2052.

Many people in our modern world rarely if ever experience night vision. To achieve this interesting state of sensory awareness you cannot look at your cell phone or any other source of bright light for 30 to 45 minutes. Your night vision comes about over time because the rod sensors in the retina of your eye undergo a chemical change when they are placed in total darkness. The process starts immediately but takes 20 to 30 minutes to get 80% of maximum sensitivity. The night vision process can be reversed in seconds by exposure to a bright light. In it's most sensitive state your eye can function with a billion times less light than is present in strong sunlight enabling you to see a candle flame from 1.6 miles away.

It is possible the object creating the Tunguska event in Russia 1908 which knocked down 80 million trees over an area about twice the size of New York City was a fragment of a comet or asteroid. The International Asteroid Warning Network 2025 campaign to track Comet 3L/Atlas prepares the worlds observatories for the eventual time when a comet fragment has our number on it.

Venus and Earth are similar in size, composition, density, and mass. Unfortunately, our sister planet Venus is an example of a place where green house gases have created an extreme situation. Venus's thick carbon dioxide atmosphere has a surface pressure 90 times that of Earth. It would crush a submarine. Additionally, the thick atmospheric blanket holds in the heat causing Venus's surface temperature to be 864 F, hot enough to melt lead.

Just before noon on September 1st of 1859 Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson were making sketches of clusters of sunspots when they were nearly blinded by an intense solar flare. 17.6 hours later a geomagnetic storm thought to be caused by a solar coronal mass ejection traveling at some 1,500 miles per second slammed into the magnetic field surrounding our home planet. We missed being hit with a such large coronal mass ejection by only 9 days in July of 2012. Next time we might not be that lucky.

Dr Lance Benner of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory headed up a team of scientists who used the 70 meter antenna at NASA's Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex to bounce RADAR beams off of the asteroid Florence as it made a close approach to Earth in September of 2017. The RADAR images these researchers obtained reveal that Florence consists of a 2.8 mile diameter primary asteroid which is orbited by two small moons. Florence's two satellites appear to be between three hundred and a thousand feet in diameter and orbit the main asteroid in about 8 and 24 hours respectively. Florence is rare since there are only two other triple asteroid systems among the 16,000 Earth approaching asteroids which asteroid hunters have discovered. We would know more about Florence if Hurricane Irma had not prevented astronomers from using the giant Arecibo RADAR Dish in Puerto Rico to study it. Our curiosity will have to wait since Florence will not come very close again until September 2, 2057.

The Dark Energy Camera on the National Science Foundation’s Blanco 4-meter telescope on Cerro Tololo in Chile is taking near Sun twilight images to search for asteroids, hidden in the glare of our Sun, sneaking up on home planet.

At about 2AM on July 18, 2011 several people in near Tata, Morocco saw a bright fireball which was described by one of them to be initially yellow, then turned green, and finally exploded into several pieces producing two sonic booms. In October of 2011 desert wandering nomads began finding very fresh looking dark fusion-crusted stones which were radioactively dated by Dr. John Duke of the University of Alberta to be less than 5 years old. In total 15-24 lbs of meteorites consistent with a very recent fall were found in a strewn field, were whisk away to receive high prices from collectors, and named after the town of Tissint [tee.seent] about 30 miles from their discovery location.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Vivian Carvajal was asteroid hunting in the constellation of Eridanus with the 90 inch, University of Arizona’s Bok telescope on Kitt Peak when she was treated to an amazing sight. Comet COMET 240P/NEAT with a small version of itself cruising along beside it.It is virtually impossible to predict if Vivian’s fragment 240P-B will survive to make another approach to the Sun in 2033 or so.

On a busy night of asteroid hunting with the 90 inch, University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory Bok telescope on Kitt Peak in Arizona, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Vivian Carvajal discovered 13 new Earth approaching objects. One of them now known as 2025 TF immediately got her attention as it streaked through the constellation of Pegasus. Another space rock 2020 VT4 came about 30 miles closer to the surface of our home planet giving 2025 TF second place as a grazing non impactor.

In a recent 60 day period asteroid hunters tracked 24 space rocks which came closer than our Moon. My team the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey operates 5 telescopes in the mountains around Tucson, Arizona. Our goal is to find objects like 2025 RM1 which are on an impact trajectory with our home planet in advance so that people in the effected area can be warned to stay away from doors and windows.

Dr Uisdean Nicholson from Heriot-Watt University and his team of 9 co-authors analyze 3D seismic imaging and drill cuttings from a 1980s oil well to make a convincing case that the Silverpit crater was produced by a the impact of a 1.5 football field diameter asteroid approximately 45 million years ago.

On a recent clear night my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Hannes Groller was asteroid hunting with the Steward Observatory 90 inch Bok telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona when he discovered 8 natural visitors to our neighborhood. Telescopes around the world began to track and determine the natures these asteroids. Six of Hannes’s discoveries are classified as Near Earth Objects while the other two are more distant Mars crossing asteroids

Scientists are using many approaches to understanding the nature and history of 3I/Atlas the third known interstellar traveler in the night. At a hyperbolic velocity of 130,000 mph it is the fastest interstellar visitor ever measured.

Obtaining accurate data on the Earth’s climate and how it is changing is vital to inform agriculture , insurance risks, business planning, disaster preparedness, financial investments, wild fire mitigation, and national security. The USA should not be flying blind and relying on Europe and China for the data we need.

The Lagrange point L4 is 60° ahead of Mars whereas L5 is 60° behind Mars on the red planet’s orbital path about the Sun. An object placed at either of these locations is trapped gravitationally and is likely to remain there indefinitely. The Mars L4 and L5 locations could provide a permanent place for staging and resupply missions to Mars and would give humans a different view of space weather and its effects on our home planet.

50 years ago scientists found that Chlorofluorocarbons or CFC chemicals in widespread use in refrigeration, air conditioning , and hair spray were beginning to damage the ozone layer in the Earth’s stratosphere which blocks harmful Solar UVB radiation from reaching the surface. The world wide response was the Montreal Protocol banning these chemicals from being released into the atmosphere. It saved millions of humans from dying of skin cancer. Satellite ashes are a new threat to the protective ozone layer.

The planets, millions of asteroids, tens of thousands of comets, distant icy worlds, and countless other bits and pieces of material orbit the Sun. A group of such co-orbiting objects is called the Taurid complex or swarm. It consists of Comet 2P/Enke, a number of near Earth asteroids, and the meteor stream which produces the Taurid meteor shower every October and November.

Astronomers have discovered some 1.4 million asteroids.  Approximately 35,000 of these space rocks come near Earth.  Less than 40 of them are classified as being Atira asteroids whose orbits lie entirely within the Earth’s orbit about the Sun. Only one of these, asteroid number 594913 named  'Ayló'chaxnim (eye-LAW-chax-nim ) has an orbit which is entirely within the orbit of the planet Venus. 

Dr. Bill Cooke of NASA’s Meteoroid Environment Office reports that on June 26, 2025 shortly after noon a beachball sized meteoroid traveling at approximately 30,000 miles per hour broke up about 27 miles above the town of West Forrest, Georgia.

Amazingly, nature occasionally sends an interstellar traveler through our solar system for us to observe. The third such object that astronomers have discovered coming into our solar system from truly deep space is 3I/ATLAS. It was discovered as it streaked towards the inner solar system at 130,000 miles per hour by the ATLAS team’s 20 inch telescope in Chile and was quickly tracked by telescope around the world.

On a a short June night my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard was observing with our 60 inch telescope on Mt. Lemmon, Arizona in the constellation of Ursa Major when a relatively bright fast moving point of light appeared in a set of his images. Even though on its current path Greg's discovery, 2025 MM89, has virtually no chance of impacting our home planet asteroid hunters will continue to track it to make sure it doesn’t become a threat as it passes other objects in space.