Anthea Coster is a staff member at the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory where she works in the satellite... more Anthea Coster is a staff member at the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory where she works in the satellite tracking program at the Millstone Hill Radar. She received a BA in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS and PhD in space physics and astronomy from Rice University. Arthur Niell is a research scientist at the M.I.T. Haystack
Abstract The Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) is an advanced optical sensor designed and tested... more Abstract The Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) is an advanced optical sensor designed and tested by MIT Lincoln Laboratory for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is currently in the process of being integrated into the Space Surveillance Network. By operating the telescope in a manner normally intended for the discovery of small, artificial space objects, SST is serendipitously sensitive to the detection of very small asteroids as they traverse close to the Earth, passing rapidly through SST's search volume. This mode of operation stands in contrast to the standard approach for the search and discovery of asteroids and near-Earth objects (NEOs), in which longer revisit times restrict survey sensitivities to objects moving no faster than about 20 °/day. From data collected during SST's observation runs in New Mexico, we detail the discovery of 92 new candidate objects in heliocentric orbit whose absolute magnitudes range from H = 26.4 to 35.9 (approximately 18-m to 25-cm in size). Some of these discoveries represent the smallest natural objects ever observed in orbit. We compare the candidate objects with bolide observations (Brown et al., 2016).
Anthea Coster is a staff member at the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory where she works in the satellite... more Anthea Coster is a staff member at the M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory where she works in the satellite tracking program at the Millstone Hill Radar. She received a BA in mathematics from the University of Texas at Austin and an MS and PhD in space physics and astronomy from Rice University. Arthur Niell is a research scientist at the M.I.T. Haystack
Abstract The Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) is an advanced optical sensor designed and tested... more Abstract The Space Surveillance Telescope (SST) is an advanced optical sensor designed and tested by MIT Lincoln Laboratory for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), which is currently in the process of being integrated into the Space Surveillance Network. By operating the telescope in a manner normally intended for the discovery of small, artificial space objects, SST is serendipitously sensitive to the detection of very small asteroids as they traverse close to the Earth, passing rapidly through SST's search volume. This mode of operation stands in contrast to the standard approach for the search and discovery of asteroids and near-Earth objects (NEOs), in which longer revisit times restrict survey sensitivities to objects moving no faster than about 20 °/day. From data collected during SST's observation runs in New Mexico, we detail the discovery of 92 new candidate objects in heliocentric orbit whose absolute magnitudes range from H = 26.4 to 35.9 (approximately 18-m to 25-cm in size). Some of these discoveries represent the smallest natural objects ever observed in orbit. We compare the candidate objects with bolide observations (Brown et al., 2016).
Uploads
Papers by Mark Czerwinski