Asteroid Surveys
About
Catalina Sky Survey
The mission of the Catalina Sky Survey is to contribute to the inventory of near-earth objects (NEOs), or more specifically, the potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) that pose an impact risk to Earth and its inhabitants.
The identification of the iridium anomaly at the Cretaceous-Tertiary boundary (Alvarez et al. 1980), associated Chicxulub impact crater (Hildebrand et al. 1991) and the Permian-Triassic "great dying" possibly being associated with Australian Bedout Crater (Becker et al. 2004) strongly suggest that impacts by minor planets play an important role in the evolution of life.
SPACEWATCH®
The primary goal of SPACEWATCH® is to explore the various populations of small objects in the solar system, and study the statistics of asteroids and comets in order to investigate the dynamical evolution of the solar system. SPACEWATCH® also finds potential targets for interplanetary spacecraft missions, provides follow-up astrometry of such targets, and finds objects that might present a hazard to the Earth.
Faculty
Asteroid Surveys Faculty
Robert (Bob) McMillan
Research Professor (Retired)
Other Researchers
Asteroid Surveys Researchers
Adam Battle
PTYS Graduate Student
Melissa Brucker
Principal Investigator, Spacewatch, Research Scientist
Carson Fuls
Director, Catalina Sky Survey, PTYS Graduate Student
Hannes Gröller
Research Scientist/Assistant Staff Scientist
Steve Larson
Research Scientist/Senior Staff Scientist
Bashar Rizk
Research Scientist/Senior Staff Scientist, OSIRIS-REx/OCAMS
Support Staff
Asteroid Surveys Support Staff
Tracie Beuden
Survey Operations Specialist, Catalina Sky Survey
Terrence Bressi
Engineer/Observer, Spacewatch
Vivian Carvajal
Survey Operations Specialist, Catalina Sky Survey
Don Fay
R&D Systems Engineer, Catalina Sky Survey
Jacqueline Fazekas
Research Technologist, Catalina Sky Survey
Alex Gibbs
Principal Engineer, Catalina Sky Survey
Albert Grauer
Technical Expert, Catalina Sky Survey
Joshua Hogan
Research Technologist, Catalina Sky Survey
Richard Kowalski
Research Specialist, Senior, Catalina Sky Survey
Jeffrey Larsen
Technical Expert, Spacewatch
Gregory Leonard
Research Specialist, Senior, Catalina Sky Survey
Ronald Mastaler
Observer, Spacewatch
David Rankin
Senior Research Specialist, Catalina Sky Survey
Michael Read
Chief Engineer/Observer, Spacewatch
James Scotti
Observer, Spacewatch
Robert Seaman
Data Engineer, Senior, Data Engineer, Senior, Catalina Sky Survey
Frank Shelly
Senior Systems Programmer, Catalina Sky Survey
Andrew Tubbiolo
Engineer/Observer, Spacewatch