What could make Opening Day at an Arizona Diamondbacks game even better? That would be catching a foul ball and making it look easy! Nice job, Professor Swindle!
But wait...lightning strikes twice! There is no video confirmation, but reports indicate that Tim Swindle caught a second line-drive foul ball at the Arizona Diamondbacks game on Sunday, April 13. Good to know that our Head and Director might have an alternate career path in case of a bad funding year.
The Catalina Sky Survey Team (CSS) reached an important milestone, and also discovered two highly unusual asteroids in the last few months. The milestone was that CSS discovered its 5000th Near-Earth Object (NEO). On March 31, CSS Astronomer Jess Johnson discovered NEO 2014 FS52 using the 60" reflector on Mt. Lemmon. According to CSS PI Eric Christensen, "This is a fairly ordinary NEO, but an extraordinary statistic!
Congratulat
ions to Ken Domanik, recipient of this year's LPL Appointed Personnel Staff Excellence Award, and to Bertha Orosco, recipient of the 2014 Classified Staff Excellence Award!
Christa L. Van Laerhoven successfully defended her dissertation titled "Multi-Planet Extra-Solar Systems: Tides and Classical Secular Theory" on April 16. Christa began her career as a graduate student in 2008, with two years of support from a Canadian NSERC (National Science and Engineering Research Council of Canada) Fellowship.
LPL’s Catalina Sky Survey is providing data to Planetary Resources, Inc. in an effort to improve detection of NEOs. Planetary Resources is a private company committed to utilization of resources in space. The president is Chris Lewicki, whose LPL connections stretch back to his days as an undergraduate working with Bill Boynton’s group, and their advisory board includes LPL alums Tom Jones and Mark Sykes.
In March, Senior Staff Scientist Steve Larson forwarded news that Catalina Sky Survey observer Rik Hill (Research Specialist, Senior) discovered the "crumbling" asteroid P/2013 R3. Hubble Space Telescope provided the likely the first known observation of an asteroid breaking up through spin-up by the YORP effect: Hubble witnesses an asteroid mysteriously disintegrating
Congratulations to Rik and the Catalina Sky Survey!
Molly Simon
is the recipient of the Outstanding Graduate Teaching Assistant Award for Fall 2013. Molly earned the award for her work as a GTA for Dr. Steve Kortenkamp's PTYS/ASTR 206 course. Molly is a first-year graduate student; her advisor is Assistant Professor Ilaria Pascucci.
