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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
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Robert (Bob) McMillan
Research Professor (Retired)
Other Researchers
Asteroid Surveys Researchers
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Adam Battle
PTYS Graduate Student
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Melissa Brucker
Principal Investigator, Spacewatch, Research Scientist
Carson Fuls
Director, Catalina Sky Survey, PTYS Graduate Student
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Hannes Gröller
Research Scientist/Assistant Staff Scientist
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Steve Larson
Research Scientist/Senior Staff Scientist
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Bashar Rizk
Research Scientist/Senior Staff Scientist, OSIRIS-REx/OCAMS
Support Staff
Asteroid Surveys Support Staff
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Tracie Beuden
Survey Operations Specialist, Catalina Sky Survey
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Terrence Bressi
Engineer/Observer, Spacewatch
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Vivian Carvajal
Survey Operations Specialist, Catalina Sky Survey
Don Fay
R&D Systems Engineer, Catalina Sky Survey
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Jacqueline Fazekas
Research Technologist, Catalina Sky Survey
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Alex Gibbs
Principal Engineer, Catalina Sky Survey
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Albert Grauer
Technical Expert, Catalina Sky Survey
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Joshua Hogan
Research Technologist, Catalina Sky Survey
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Richard Kowalski
Research Specialist, Senior, Catalina Sky Survey
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Jeffrey Larsen
Technical Expert, Spacewatch
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Gregory Leonard
Research Specialist, Senior, Catalina Sky Survey
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Ronald Mastaler
Observer, Spacewatch
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David Rankin
Senior Research Specialist, Catalina Sky Survey
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Michael Read
Chief Engineer/Observer, Spacewatch
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James Scotti
Observer, Spacewatch
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Robert Seaman
Data Engineer, Senior, Data Engineer, Senior, Catalina Sky Survey
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Frank Shelly
Senior Systems Programmer, Catalina Sky Survey
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Andrew Tubbiolo
Engineer/Observer, Spacewatch