Awash in a Stream of Asteroids: Using ground-based facilities to observe NEO "fly-bys"

Nicholas Moskovitz博士被授予美国国家科学基金会天文学和天体物理学博士后奖学金，在麻省理工学院开展研究和教育项目。这个项目的重点是了解小行星在非常小的距离上经过地球时的物理和成分特性。这位研究员将探索行星科学的一个领域，这个领域直到最近才因新发现的近地小行星（NEO）的快速增长而得以实现。这不仅对了解近地天体的组成和物理性质具有广泛的意义，而且还与涉及撞击危险、陨石学和宇宙化学、航天器任务、雷达天文学和太阳系动力学等主题的多学科研究有关。随着被编目的近地天体数量稳步增加，研究人员正在达到这样一个阶段：与地球的近距离接触不再是几天前才发现，而是可以提前数月或数年预测。在近距离接触中，未经探索的小天体可以通过广泛的波长范围和各种地面设施进行观测。该研究员将利用这些接触，在他的奖学金每年进行有针对性的光谱和光度测量活动。这些观测将(1)提供对小行星组成特性的深入了解，(2)建立地球上的陨石与其在太空中的直接母体之间的联系，(3)研究观测几何对行星体反射率测量的作用，以及(4)寻找小行星表面的异质性，这可能提供关于风化层和热物理特性的线索。这个项目更广泛的影响包括一个重要的教育组成部分。该研究员的教育计划包括指导、课程开发和教学相结合，所有这些都集中在以创新的方式培养本科生的观测天文学基础。该研究员将在奖学金课程中以结构化的方式使用基于探究的方法指导几名本科生。到第二年，他将开发出一套课程和练习，并将其纳入观测天文学课程中教授。该计划不仅旨在通过个性化指导和真正的研究项目促进本科生的学习和理解，而且还将在麻省理工学院？S观测天文学课程。参与这个项目的本科生将在他们职业生涯的早期阶段接受必要的训练，为将来成为成功的观测天文学家做好准备。从长远来看，这一经验将为研究员提供一个发展课程的机会，使其能够在奖学金结束后的几年里继续实施。更广泛地说，近地天体近距离接触的话题引起了公众的极大好奇心，并为研究员提供了一个绝佳的机会，在他的研究期间进行公开演讲，以增进我们社会的科学理解。

Dr. Nicholas Moskovitz is awarded an NSF Astronomy and Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out a program of research and education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. This project is focused on understanding the physical and compositional properties of asteroids as they pass by Earth at very small distances. The fellow will explore an area of planetary science that has only recently been enabled by the rapid rate of new near-Earth asteroid (NEO) discoveries. This will not only have wide implications for understanding the compositional and physical properties of NEOs but will also be relevant to multidisciplinary studies involving the topics of impact hazards, meteoritics and cosmochemistry, space craft missions, radar astronomy, and Solar System dynamics.With steadily increasing numbers of catalogued NEOs, investigators are reaching a point where close encounters with Earth are no longer detected just a few days beforehand but can be predicted months or years in advance. During close encounters small bodies in unexplored size regimes become observationally accessible across a wide range of wavelengths and with a variety of ground-based facilities. The fellow will take advantage of these encounters by conducting targeted spectroscopic and photometric campaigns in each year of his fellowship. These observations will (1) provide insight on the compositional properties of small asteroids, (2) establish links between meteorites on Earth and their immediate parent bodies in space, (3) investigate the role of observing geometry on reflectance measurements of planetary bodies, and (4) look for asteroid surface heterogeneity which could provide clues about regolith and thermo-physical properties.The broader impacts of this project include a significant educational component. The fellow's educational plan involves a combination of mentoring, curriculum development, and teaching, all focused on training undergraduates in innovative ways on the foundations of observational astronomy. The fellow will mentor several undergraduates over the course of the fellowship in a structured manner using inquiry-based methods. By the second year the fellow will have developed a set of lessons and exercises that he will incorporate and teach in an observational astronomy course. The program is designed to not only advance the learning and understanding of undergraduates through personalized mentoring and real research projects, but it will also incorporate new components into MIT?s observational astronomy course. The undergraduates involved in this program will receive at an early stage in their careers the training necessary for future success as observational astronomers. In the long-term this experience will provide the fellow an opportunity to develop a course curriculum that can continue to be implemented in the years beyond this fellowship. More broadly, the topic of NEO close encounters garners significant public curiosity and provides an excellent opportunity for the fellow to give public talks to enhance scientific understanding within our society throughout his fellowship.