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

Nicholas Moskovitz博士被授予NSF天文学和天体物理学博士后奖学金，以在麻省理工学院开展一项研究和教育计划。这个项目的重点是了解小行星在非常小的距离内经过地球时的物理和组成特性。这位研究员将探索行星科学的一个领域，该领域最近才因新的近地小行星(NEO)发现的快速速度而成为可能。这不仅将对了解近地天体的组成和物理性质产生广泛影响，而且还将与涉及撞击危险、气象学和宇宙化学、航天器飞行任务、雷达天文学和太阳系动力学等专题的多学科研究有关。随着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点，即不再只在几天前就能探测到与地球的近距离接触，而是可以提前几个月或几年预测到。在近距离相遇期间，可以通过各种波长和各种地面设施观测到尚未探索的大小区域中的小型天体。这位研究员将利用这些接触，在他的研究员任期的每一年进行有针对性的光谱和光度学运动。这些观测将(1)深入了解小型小行星的组成特性，(2)在地球上的陨石与其在太空中的直接母体之间建立联系，(3)调查观测几何学对行星体反射率测量的作用，以及(4)寻找小行星表面的不均一性，这可提供关于土层和热物理性质的线索。这位研究员的教育计划包括指导、课程开发和教学相结合，所有这些都侧重于以创新的方式培训本科生在观测天文学的基础上。这位研究员将在奖学金课程中使用基于探究的方法有组织地指导几名本科生。到第二年，这位研究员将开发出一套课程和练习，他将在一门观测天文学课程中纳入和教授这些课程。该项目不仅旨在通过个性化的指导和真实的研究项目来促进本科生的学习和理解，还将在麻省理工学院S天文观测课程中融入新的组成部分。参与该项目的本科生将在他们职业生涯的早期阶段接受作为观测天文学家取得未来成功所必需的培训。从长远来看，这一经验将为研究员提供一个机会来制定课程课程，该课程可以在奖学金之后的几年内继续实施。更广泛地说，近地天体近地天体的话题引起了公众的极大好奇心，并为这位研究员提供了一个极好的机会，让他在整个奖学金期间进行公开演讲，以增进我们社会内的科学理解。

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.