First graduate student to spot the asteroid zipping past the Earth

For as long as he can remember, Cole Gregg has been interested in space. Last week, the Western University astronomy graduate student spent a night he will never forget when he spotted an undiscovered asteroid flashing in the night sky.

Studying at home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Gregg is one of several astronomers with remote access to a telescope based in Nerpio, Spain, at an observatory known as Astrocamp.

While operating the telescope, located atop a mountain in Spain, Gregg noticed a bright spot moving rapidly across his field of view. Upon further investigation with Western astronomy professor Paul Wiegert, the object turned out to be a small asteroid estimated to be 50 to 100 meters in diameter that traverses near-Earth space.

“It’s a rare pleasure to be the first person to spot one of these visitors in the vicinity of our planet,” said Wiegert, Gregg’s research consultant, “Astronomers around the world continuously monitor near-Earth space for asteroids, so this is definitely a flagship Cole’s hat. “

Gregg spotted the asteroid, which now has the temporary designation ALA2xH, on Wednesday 18 November. Once the asteroid was observed, the measurements of the observation were sent to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) in Cambridge, Mass. When MPC determines that the observation is unique, as it was, it is placed in their “Near- Earth Object Confirmation Page “(NEOCP), where the estimated orbit of the asteroid is calculated in the hope of capturing an image again. But Gregg says, no luck yet.

“We tried again to recover ALA2xH from the initial observation, but with no luck due to the weather and unavailability of the telescopes,” said Gregg.

Despite everything that’s happening in the world right now, Gregg says it’s been great to keep taking pictures remotely with a telescope over the Internet.

“Even though my current project is all about finding asteroids in the sky, you’re never quite ready to see one that nobody has yet and all from the comfort of my home. There’s something very interesting about that,” said Gregg. .