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A spruced-up Arecibo Observatory re-opens -- and spies an asteroid close to the sun (Forwarded)



 
 
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Old January 6th 08, 06:48 AM posted to sci.space.news
Andrew Yee[_1_]
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Default A spruced-up Arecibo Observatory re-opens -- and spies an asteroid close to the sun (Forwarded)

Press Relations Office
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

Contact: Blaine Friedlander
Phone: (607) 254-8093

FOR RELEASE: Dec. 20, 2007

A spruced-up Arecibo Observatory re-opens -- and spies an asteroid close to
the sun

ITHACA, N.Y. -- The paint is dry and it's time for science: After receiving
its first fresh, full coat of paint in more than 40 years, Cornell
University's Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico -- the scientific
actor with a title role in the James Bond film "Goldeneye" -- made its first
observation in more than six-months at 6:36 a.m. Saturday, Dec. 8, 2007. The
Arecibo telescope spied an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon.

The asteroid -- if it is one -- travels close to the sun. But here's the
catch: Astronomers suspect that Phaethon may actually be a comet and a
possible parent of the Geminid meteor shower, which annually causes many
streams of shooting stars between now and Christmas.

Phaethon and other asteroids that have trajectories strongly affected by
sunlight, sun shape and general relativity effects are being studied by
Jean-Luc Margot, Cornell assistant professor of astronomy and Jon Giorgini,
of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.. Mike Nolan, an
Arecibo staff scientist, conducted the observation.

Asteroid orbits are influenced by the absorption and reemission of solar
energy -- or the so-called Yarkovsky effect. These changes to the asteroidal
motion will be quantified with the Arecibo radar measurements to understand
the properties of near-Earth asteroids. This is one of dozens of projects
now underway at the observatory.

Paintbrushes down: The six-month project -- the first time the Arecibo
platform and focal-point structure had received a thorough painting -- ended
in November of this year. Since then a skeletal crew of observatory staff
worked around the clock to bring the radio telescope and the planetary radar
back to astronomical life.

Now, the observatory is fully functional, as all motion, electronic,
transmitting and receiving, and computing systems are operating. "It is
ready to return to the task of carrying out the scientific observations for
the many thousands of hours of approved research programs that will keep the
telescope very busy for the next several years," said Robert Brown, director
of the National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, a national research center
operated by under a cooperative agreement with the National Science
Foundation.

As part of Arecibo's history, the observatory detected the first pulsar in a
binary system in 1974, which lead to confirmation of Einstein's theory of
general relativity and a Nobel Prize for astronomers Russell Hulse and
Joseph Taylor in 1993. Also, Arecibo has provided Hollywood filmmakers with
a unique backdrop, as it was featured in the James Bond film "Goldeneye" and
in the film "Contact," which was based on a novel by the late Cornell
astronomy professor Carl Sagan.

Related Information:

* Arecibo
http://www.naic.edu/

IMAGE CAPTION:
[http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Dec07/phaethon.png (23KB)]
This radar image of asteroid 3200 Phaethon is the sum of two obtained at the
Arecibo Observatory on Dec. 8.
 




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