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As posted on AZDailySun.com on 05/29/26.

View from Mars Hill: Some history behind the returning ‘blue moon’

This weekend brings the first “blue moon” since 2024. But despite the name, the moon will not appear blue and the story behind the nickname is a bit complicated.

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When you ask an astronomer when their interest in the field began, they will usually tell you a story about a time they looked up at the cosmos: perhaps the first time they saw a shooting star or looked through a telescope. In the case of Percival Lowell Postdoctoral Fellow and planetary astronomer Dr. Kate Minker, the interest that would eventually bring her to pursuing astronomy as a career began with looking down at Earth. 

“When I was three or four, I went to a botanical garden and I was enthralled,” Minker recalls. “I was like, I’m gonna work here when I grow up.” Her mother informed her that the job she was describing was called landscape design, and for many years, that was the plan. But eventually, her love of math began to pull her in a different direction. 

“I wanted to find something that was very mathy, but still related to natural science,” Minker explains. Eventually, she’d find that her two loves existed together in a single field. 

According to Minker, there are two types of astronomers: those who were drawn to the field by a love of science fiction, and those who were drawn by a love of natural science.

“I’m very far on the natural sciences interest side,” she says. For Minker, space has always been an extension of the same curiosity that drew her to gardens as a child, but on a much larger scale. “I basically switched from “down” science to “up” science,” she says with a laugh. 

Minker earned an undergraduate degree in astronomy and a creative writing certification from the University of Maryland, where she started out pursuing both physics and astronomy simultaneously. She had satisfied the requirements for a bachelors in astronomy by her third year, and decided to finish the degree early. The way her program was structured, there was a stretch of several semesters where astronomy classes were largely absent from her schedule, replaced by physics coursework that, at the time, didn’t align with her interests.

“I was thinking I was going to go into high school teaching,” she says. Then two things happened at once: she took a planetary science class she loved, and COVID arrived. The pandemic scrambled her plans for teaching as schools switched to online classes. She turned down a job offer at a boarding school and applied for a master’s program at the Université Côte d’Azur in Nice, France, co-hosted by the Observatoire de la Côte d’Azur, one of the world’s premier planetary science institutions. This program would also allow her to spend some time at the Royal Observatory of Belgium in Brussels. 

When the opportunity came to stay at Côte d’Azur for her PhD on a related project, she took it. The work eventually took her even further afield, including a stint at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in Santiago, Chile. “I kept loving it,” she says simply, “and I’ve been doing it ever since.” 

At Lowell Observatory, Minker studies binary asteroid systems, or asteroids that have a smaller companion object orbiting them, using some of the most powerful telescopes on Earth. A technique called adaptive-optics imaging corrects for the blurring effect of Earth’s atmosphere to produce images that are, as Minker puts it, “as zoomed-in as possible,” in order to see the shape of the asteroid and the movements of its moon. 

“Because the asteroid isn’t a sphere, the distribution of mass in that weird shape will add a little bit of extra movement to the orbit,” she explains. “You can track that, and it’s predictable to a certain level. And then you can see: is the perturbation we expect from the shape the same as the one we observe, or is there more or less?” 

Imagine a large metal ball surrounded by a thick shell of Styrofoam, shaped like an egg. If you’re holding the egg at one end but the metal is at the other, the weight distribution is going to be uneven in a very specific, detectable way. This is essentially what Minker is doing: figuring out whether the mass inside an asteroid is distributed evenly throughout, or concentrated in one spot, and what that information can tell her about its history and composition.

“You know how much it weighs,” she says, “but is that weight distributed all the way through, or is it concentrated in one spot? And if it’s concentrated in one spot, what can we learn from that?” 

Understanding the internal structure of these objects helps scientists understand the building blocks of the solar system, and ultimately, how planets like Earth came to be. As Minker points out, “Earth rocks are still space rocks. We just have a much better look at them.” 

Kate uses several major facilities around the world in her studies (SPHERE at the Very Large Telescope in Chile, SHARK at the Large Binocular Telescope in Tucson to name two). Locally, she uses the Lowell Discovery Telescope is especially well-suited for tracking moving objects like asteroids, and the QWSSI speckle interferometry instrument allows her to speedily hunt for undiscovered asteroid moons.

Minker’s favorite part of her work is experiencing the moment of first light on a new object, and the satisfying immediacy that comes with imaging-based science. “As soon as you get the first images, you get some idea of what it’s gonna look like,” she says. “You don’t have to tease things out over time.” 

When it comes to planetary science as a whole, she notes that it has a rare quality that sets it apart from almost every other branch of astronomy. “You could go there and check,” she says. Space missions, past and future, can offer insights that most astronomers never get. “It’s nice that there is a real, up close and personal comparison that you can anchor everything to.” 

However, when asked if she would ever consider going into space herself, she had this to say: “Absolutely not. I love Earth. I want to stay right here.”

Outside of work, Minker does a little bit of everything. She knits, sews, dabbles in bookbinding, hikes, and recently, has started taking aerial silks classes. 

Her favorite asteroid is (283) Emma, a large asteroid with what Minker describes as a particularly beautiful moon. Because asteroid Emma predates her friend and asteroid moon-hunting colleague Emma Mirizio by roughly a century, Minker often has to make a distinction between the two in conversation. The asteroid is Emma, and her colleague is “Human Emma.”

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Making the most of a summer visit to Lowell? The sample itinerary below is a great place to start — though it’s just one of many ways to spend your day! Check out our Things to Do page for a full schedule of everything Lowell has to offer. 

Any Time – Explore the Astronomy Discovery Center

The Astronomy Discovery Center is a state-of-the-art facility with engaging indoor exhibits for all ages, including:

• The Orbits Curiosity Zone

A hands-on children’s exhibit hall designed for ages 0-8. This vibrant space blends fun and education through interactive displays, led by lovable alien mascots Marzee and Pluie.

• The Stardust Lab Astronomy Gallery

Dive into the wonders of the universe through multisensory exhibits that blend science, storytelling, and personal connection to the cosmos.

• The Diverse Universe Wall

Discover the stories of under-recognized scientists whose contributions helped shape the world of astronomy, physics, and chemistry.

2 PM – History Talk: Origins of Lowell

How did a hillside in Flagstaff become one of the most important places in the history of astronomy? This talk explores Percival Lowell’s world-captivating discoveries and the legacy he left behind. You’ll then take a guided walk to the historic 24-inch Clark Refractor, the century-old telescope at the heart of it all.

Location: Lowell Universe Theater

3 PM – We Are Stars

We Are Stars seeks to answer some of the biggest questions of all time. What are we made of? Where did it all come from? This short film explores the secrets of our cosmic chemistry, explosive origins, and connects life on Earth to the evolution of the Universe. NSC Creative applies its trademark approach of making complex scientific concepts accessible to all ages by using immersive and engaging visualizations.

Location: Lowell Universe Theater

4 PM – Meet the Planets 

Celebrate 100 years of Route 66! Begin with an exclusive talk exploring how the Mother Road paved a path of astronomical discovery, then step inside a rarely seen private collections exhibit. See our restored 1911 Stevens-Duryea “Big Red” and discover how science and history came together along America’s most iconic highway.

Space is limited, please reserve your spot at the Visitor Services Desk.

5 PM – Cosmic Highways

Celebrate 100 years of Route 66! Begin with an exclusive talk exploring how the Mother Road paved a path of astronomical discovery, then step inside a rarely seen private collections exhibit. See our restored 1911 Stevens-Duryea “Big Red” and discover how science and history came together along America’s most iconic highway.

Space is limited, please reserve your spot at the Visitor Services Desk.

6 PM – Dinner at the Planet X Cafe

Enjoy delicious coffee, teas, sandwiches, soups, salads, and pastries from Jitters Lunchbox in a stylish dining room, complete with a cozy fireplace. The Planet X Cafe is Lowell’s first-ever on-campus eatery — no more having to leave campus to grab a bite during your visit!

View Menu

7:30 PM – Telescope Viewing at the Open Deck Observatory*

The Giovale Open Deck Observatory at Lowell Observatory features one of the finest collections of telescopes available for public observing. This public observing plaza features six advanced telescopes that collectively give you a viewing experience that goes far beyond seeing faint smudges of light.

*Weather permitting. 

8:30 PM – Telescope Viewing at the Clark Telescope*

The 24-inch Clark Refractor even contributed to the Apollo 11 mission, helping scientists map the Moon’s surface and prepare astronauts for their historic lunar landing. Today, this legendary telescope is dedicated entirely to giving visitors a spectacular view of the night sky — the very same eyepiece that helped to shape our understanding of the universe is yours to look through.

*Weather permitting. 

9:30 PM – Dark Sky Planetarium Show

Which Show is Playing Tonight?

To best fit your experience with what the night sky has to offer, our Dark Sky Planetarium programming changes depending on the lunar phase. When the moon is bright we will be presenting Stories of the Moon and during darker Moon phases we will be showing Strange New Worlds.

Exact dates of each show vary, please check with the front desk for what is playing the night of your visit.

• Strange New Worlds

Could there be life on other planets?

Join us on the rooftop of the Astronomy Discovery Center at the Dark Sky Planetarium for Strange New Worlds, a live, outdoor presentation. This immersive show takes you beyond our solar system to explore planets orbiting distant stars and the search for life across the cosmos.

• Stories of the Moon

Take a closer look at the Moon and uncover the story it has been telling for billions of years. In this live, presenter-led experience under the real night sky, you’ll explore how the Moon formed from a violent collision, how its surface preserves a record of impacts that shaped Earth, and how it has inspired humans to observe, question, and understand the universe.

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Flagstaff, AZ — Scientists are using machine learning to gain new insight into one of the most familiar sights in the night sky: meteors. In a new study, researchers demonstrate how modern data-driven techniques can reveal the physical nature and origins of meteoroids, the tiny particles from asteroids and comets that produce meteors (also known as shooting stars and falling stars) as they burn up in Earth’s atmosphere.

“Meteors have been observed for centuries, but only recently have we had datasets large and detailed enough to apply modern machine-learning methods,” says Sam Hemmelgarn, lead author of the study. “This allows us to extract physical information that was previously hidden in the data.”

The research draws on more than 28,000 meteor events recorded in 2023 by the Lowell Observatory Cameras for All-Sky Meteor Surveillance (LO-CAMS) network, part of the Global Meteor Network. Each meteor was described using 13 directly measured properties, including speed, brightness, duration, height, and atmospheric density. Traditional classification methods typically rely on just a few of these parameters, limiting their ability to reflect the true diversity of meteoroid material.

“Our goal was to move beyond traditional classification schemes,” says Nick Moskovitz, a co-author of the study. “Modern meteor networks capture a wealth of observational information, and we wanted a framework that could fully take advantage of that.”

Using a combination of machine learning algorithms, the researchers identified natural groupings in the data that align with known physical models of meteoroids. Their analysis revealed three key factors that govern meteor behavior during atmospheric entry: how the meteoroid travels through the atmosphere, how easily it is activated or begins to heat up and glow, and how its size and shape influence its breakup.

“One of the most exciting results was how clearly the ‘activation’ behavior separated asteroidal material from cometary material,” Hemmelgarn explains. “That tells us we’re capturing something fundamentally physical, not just statistical patterns.”

Based on these findings, the team introduced a new classification system called Hclass, a data-driven scale that describes meteoroid “hardness.” Hclass ranges from dense, iron-rich material typically associated with asteroids to fragile, porous material characteristic of cometary debris. Unlike older schemes, the new system can be tuned to show either broad categories or fine-grained subdivisions within meteoroid populations.

“Hclass gives us a more nuanced view of meteoroid composition,” says Hemmelgarn. “It bridges the gap between classical meteor theory and the realities of modern, large-scale observations.”

To validate the method, the researchers applied it to several well-known meteor showers and examined how the resulting classes behave in orbital space. The results matched expectations based on the known cometary or asteroidal origins of these showers, while also revealing additional internal structure.

Importantly, the new framework is designed to scale with future observations. Its mathematical formulation allows it to be applied to individual meteors or to millions of events, making it well suited for the continued growth of global meteor camera networks.

“This work shows that machine learning isn’t just about handling big data,” Moskovitz said. “It’s about turning those data into physical understanding of where this material comes from and how our solar system works.”

The study highlights how advanced analytical tools can transform everyday astronomical observations into powerful probes of solar system history.

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About Lowell Observatory

Founded in 1894, Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, is a renowned nonprofit research institution. It is the site of historic and groundbreaking discoveries, including the first evidence of the expanding universe and the discovery of Pluto. Today, Lowell’s astronomers utilize global ground-based and space telescopes, along with NASA spacecraft, for diverse astronomical and planetary science research. The observatory hosts more than 100,000 visitors annually for educational tours, presentations, and telescope viewing through a suite of world-class public telescopes.

###

Media Contact:

Kevin Schindler
Lowell Observatory Public Information Officer
(928) 233-3210
kevin@lowell.edu

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On the 65th anniversary of Alan Shepard becoming the first American in space, U.S. Senator and former astronaut Mark Kelly and Apollo astronaut Stuart Roosa’s daughter Rosemary headed a list of dignitaries gathered at Lowell Observatory to dedicate something small yet symbolic and meaningful: the planting of a Moon Tree.

This young American sycamore, descended from seeds that traveled around the Moon on Apollo 14, now stands on Lowell’s campus as a bridge between the past, present and future.

Dr. Amanda Bosh, Executive Director of Lowell Observatory, opened the ceremony by reminding the audience that Lowell has always been about connecting people with discovery. She spoke about the observatory’s long legacy of astronomical research and how this Moon Tree fits into that story.

The tree, she noted, is not just a symbol, but a living reminder that exploration is not only something that happens far away; it’s something that takes root right here on Earth.

Coconino County Supervisor Judy Begay followed, highlighting the region’s deep ties to astronomy, geology, and Indigenous sky traditions. She spoke of the night sky as a teacher, a guide, and a relative, something woven into stories, planting cycles, and cultural memory.

“This tree,” she said, “carries forward that same sense of connection between land, sky, and people.”

Flagstaff Vice Mayor Miranda Sweet echoed that sentiment, celebrating the city’s long role in lunar exploration, from astronaut training grounds to the mapping of the Moon’s surface. “This tree represents generations of curiosity and scientific achievement,” she said. “May it continue to inspire future explorers.”

Perhaps the most touching moment came when eight-year-old Ellie Gorney stepped up to the microphone to introduce Senator Mark Kelly. She spoke about his career as a Navy pilot, astronaut, and senator, and about the bravery he showed supporting his wife, Gabrielle Giffords, after she was injured.

“I think Mark Kelly shows that you can be smart and brave and kind all at the same time,” she said. The crowd melted.

Senator Kelly delivered a personal reflection on spaceflight, teamwork, and the power of inspiration. He spoke about the Apollo missions that shaped his childhood dreams, the awe of seeing Earth from orbit, and the importance of remembering that “we don’t have any other place to go.”

He pointed to the Moon Tree behind him—grown from a seed whose ancestor orbited the Moon with Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa—and reminded the audience that exploration is not just about where we go, but what we bring back.

“This tree is going to grow here for decades,” he said. “People will walk by it and be reminded of what is possible when we work together.”

The ceremony concluded with a moving speech from Rosemary Roosa, daughter of Apollo 14 astronaut Stuart Roosa. She shared stories of her father’s childhood on an Oklahoma chicken farm, his days as a U.S. Forest Service smokejumper, and his journey to becoming the command module pilot who carried tree seeds around the Moon.

“These Moon Trees represent the courage, the achievements, and the sacrifices of the Apollo program,” she said. “We hope you will be inspired by this tree.”

The Moon Tree now stands as a reminder of exploration, resilience, and community. It honors the past, celebrates the present, and invites future generations to look up, dream big, and stay rooted.

Presenters and members of Lowell staff pose with the Moon Tree.

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After spending nearly a decade in the U.S. Coast Guard, HR Generalist Ethan Baisden is no stranger to change. In his previous career as an officer, he relocated every two to three years — just enough time to get comfortable before having to start over somewhere new. Now, as he approaches his four-year employment anniversary at Lowell Observatory, he’s finally been able to put down some roots. 

“After having to move so often in the Coast Guard, it’s been really rewarding to stay in one place, hit my stride, and keep growing in my role,” he says.

Ethan’s path to human resources wasn’t quite linear. After leaving the Coast Guard, he worked as a construction project manager for a friend’s company in Chicago. There, he began pursuing HR professionally. 

“I realized pretty quickly that I was more interested in the people side of the business than anything else,” he explains. He joined Lowell staff as an HR Generalist shortly after moving to Flagstaff to be with his partner in 2022, earning a certification from the Society of Human Resources Management (SHRM) during his first two years of employment. 

Today, Ethan’s role as an HR Generalist touches nearly every part of the employee experience. His work managing benefits, processing personnel changes, developing policies, managing recruitment efforts for all positions below the executive level, and supporting wellness initiatives helps keep the observatory running smoothly behind the scenes.

“A big part of my job is finding the balance between supporting employees and making sure the organization stays sustainable,” he says. “I like being in a role where I can advocate for employees while also helping the organization stay on track.”

Maintaining that balance is especially important as Lowell continues to grow and change. Ethan has helped formalize policies and streamline processes, ensuring that systems evolve alongside the organization. At the same time, he’s focused on building programs that support employee well-being, including an annual health and wellness fair and ongoing initiatives funded through Lowell’s benefits program.

“If HR is doing its job well, everything just runs smoothly and no one really notices,” Ethan says. “It’s when something goes wrong that it becomes visible.” For him, that behind-the-scenes impact is part of what makes the work meaningful.

Outside the office, Ethan likes to keep things simple. Much of his time is spent with his two dogs, Stevie Licks and LB (short for “Little Brother,” a name inspired by the movie Mulan). He also enjoys cooking, disc golfing, spending time outdoors, and laid-back game nights with friends.

“I like doing things outdoors when I can,” he says, “just getting out there and moving.”

During the workweek, it’s not uncommon to see Ethan out for a midday walk around Lowell’s campus, sometimes accompanied by Stevie or LB. That everyday habit has even shaped his work, inspiring Lowell’s annual Walking Challenge: an easy way for Lowell staff to stay active, connect, and step away from their desks for a bit.

“I feel lucky,” says Ethan. “I’ve enjoyed working here more than anywhere else I’ve been.”

The post Staff Spotlight: Ethan Baisden, HR Generalist appeared first on Lowell Observatory.

Flagstaff, AZ — A new study has highlighted a striking, size-dependent trend in the compositions of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). By analyzing 189 NEAs, an international team of planetary scientists led by Dr. Nick Moskovitz of Lowell Observatory found that the smallest asteroids approaching Earth differ significantly from their larger counterparts. The discovery offers fresh insight into meteorite origins, asteroid-family evolution, and the materials most likely to reach Earth’s atmosphere—key information for planetary defense.

The research draws on more than a decade of data, from 2014 to 2025, collected by the Mission Accessible Near-Earth Object Survey (MANOS). Observations were made using three major 4-meter-class telescopes: the Lowell Discovery Telescope in Arizona, the SOAR Telescope in Chile, and the Mayall Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory.

These facilities enabled the team to classify the asteroids based on how they reflect sunlight at four different wavelengths of light, which provides a measure of the surface colors of the objects.

The team devoted special attention to understanding and correcting for how rotational brightness variations—changes in an asteroid’s brightness as it spins–can influence the measured colors. These corrections proved essential for accurate color measurements. “If you don’t account for how an asteroid brightens and dims as it spins, you can end up with misleading colors,” says Moskovitz. “For individual objects, the effect can be dramatic, and for population studies, it can introduce subtle but important biases.”

After classifying the objects, the researchers combined their results with other similar surveys to build a comprehensive dataset of colors across a wide range of NEA sizes. A clear pattern emerged: S-complex asteroids—those most similar to the most common type of meteorites, known as ordinary chondrites—dominate the population at kilometer scales but become far less common among smaller objects.

According to the study, S-complex NEAs represent roughly 65% of kilometer-scale objects, but only one-third of objects smaller than 50 meters. The team evaluated several potential explanations for this trend, including heating from the Sun, tidal resurfacing during near-Earth encounters, and the size of the grains of material that cover the surfaces of asteroids. None could fully account for the observed shift. Instead, the results align with recent models showing that small NEAs originate from a handful of young asteroid families in the Main Belt, whose compositions differ from the broader population feeding larger NEAs.

“This is one of the clearest pieces of evidence yet that the smallest NEAs come from a different mix of sources,” Moskovitz says. “It helps explain why the meteorites that land on Earth don’t perfectly match what we see among larger asteroids.”

Beyond scientific insight, the findings have practical importance. “Understanding what small NEAs are made of is essential for impact-risk assessment,” Moskovitz notes. “These are the objects most likely to reach Earth’s atmosphere, so knowing their compositions helps us model how they behave if they were to enter the atmosphere and to inform any risk posed by an object large enough to reach the ground.”

The study was published on April 23 in The Planetary Science Journal (Volume 7, Issue 4).

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The term “planetary defense” might sound like the stuff of science fiction. It conjures images of nervous scientists watching an encroaching asteroid on a grainy radar screen, a clock ticking down the seconds until a doomsday-bringing impact, or perhaps even tense negotiations between world leaders and hostile alien invaders. While these tropes make for good cinema, the reality of this emerging field is far more practical. 

In short, planetary defense refers to the collective effort of detecting, tracking, and mitigating risks from near-Earth objects (NEOs) like asteroids or comets that could impact Earth. 

I met with Lowell astronomer and asteroid expert Dr. Nick Moskovitz to gain some insight on what exactly planetary defense entails, as well as the role that the observatory currently plays in this research area.

The Five “Slices” of Planetary Defense

According to NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office, Planetary Defense can be divided up into five “slices”: 

• Search, Detect, and Track: Searching for, locating, and monitoring near-Earth asteroids (an asteroid that comes within 0.3 AU of Earth, where 1 AU is the distance between Earth and the Sun).
• Assess: Calculating the potential risk associated with an object. Could it hit Earth? If so, where and with what effects? 
• Characterize: Measuring properties like size, what the object is made of, how fast it spins, and how its orbit or trajectory in the solar system will evolve in the future. This is primarily where Lowell comes in. 
• Plan and Coordinate: The diplomatic side, coordinating dissemination of scientific data and findings to the UN, government agencies, and world leaders.

“It’s a bit of astronomy, a bit of planetary science, a bit of practical engineering, and a bit of risk assessment crossing into the realm of FEMA and emergency managers,” says Moskovitz. “You mash that all together into one discipline.”

Search, Detect, and Track

This is the “census” phase: searching for, detecting, and building a catalog of known objects.

The NASA-funded project Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search (LONEOS), which ran from 1993 to 2008, was one of the earliest dedicated asteroid-search programs. The project was run by Lowell astronomer Ted Bowell from one of Lowell’s research sites at Anderson Mesa and is credited with the discovery of more than 22,000 objects including 291 near-Earth objects, thousands of main belt asteroids (small bodies that orbit the Sun within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter), and Mars-crossers (asteroids with orbits that cross that of Mars). 

The asteroid monitoring game is set to receive a serious boost when two new projects come online in the next year or two: Vera Rubin Observatory’s Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST) and NASA’s NEO Surveyor mission. 

LSST will be an unparalleled wide-field astronomical survey using a 3.2 gigapixel camera, a powerful supercomputing cluster, a sophisticated data processing and distribution network, and a massive 8-meter telescope. The camera will image the entire visible sky every few nights over a ten-year period, capturing changes over time to create a time-lapse movie of the universe. 

NEO Surveyor is an infrared space telescope scheduled to launch in September 2027. The telescope is designed to discover and characterize at least two-thirds of potentially hazardous asteroids and comets larger than 140 meters (460 ft.) that come within 0.3 au (29.8 million miles) of Earth’s orbit.

Assess

Once an object is found, scientists determine its threat level.  

“You have to assess every object independently,” says Moskovitz. “We ask: Is it possible that it could hit the Earth? When? What would the consequences be?” 

Risk assessment is primarily handled by two NASA facilities: the Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS), JPL’s facility for computing asteroid and comet orbits and their probability of Earth impact. 

CNEOS hosts the Sentry System, which automatically scans asteroid catalogs and estimates which asteroids have a chance of hitting Earth in the next 100 years. It is also home to the Scout System, which monitors newly detected objects for possible Earth-impacts before their discoveries are even confirmed.

Once a threat is identified, the Asteroid Threat Assessment Project (ATAP) at Ames Research Center takes the lead on modeling the possible consequences. According to the NASA Advanced Supercomputing Division, their work includes:

• Impact Modeling: Developing computer models of asteroid atmospheric entry, airbursts, and surface impact to understand potential destruction.
• Asteroid Characterization: Studying the physical properties (size, shape, density, and composition) to determine how an asteroid might break up or be deflected.
• Support for Mitigation: Providing key analysis to the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) to help determine the best actions to mitigate a threat.

Characterize

This is Lowell’s primary role in the planetary defense process. Once an object has been found, it needs to be classified based on its physical properties like size and composition. While survey telescopes are well-suited for finding objects, they are not necessarily designed to identify what they are made of and function more as the modern equivalent of LONEOS — automated facilities that continuously monitor the sky for near-Earth objects. 

“If we can measure the composition of an object, like if it’s a retired spacecraft with a hollow metal body like a tin can, that has a very different impact hazard than a solid block of iron metal,” says Moskovitz.

The 4.3-meter Lowell Discovery Telescope (LDT), Lowell Observatory’s flagship research instrument, is remarkably well-equipped to measure NEO compositions. Its instruments are co-mounted, meaning scientists can switch from taking a picture of an object to analyzing its spectrum in a matter of minutes. It can accommodate five instruments that can be switched almost instantly, while most telescopes of a similar size require long periods of downtime to change between instruments. 

Unlike many large research telescopes, which typically cannot observe targets less than 15–20 degrees above the horizon, the LDT was designed with cometary studies in mind and can point as low as five degrees above the horizon. This capability allowed Lowell astronomer Dr. Qicheng Zhang to capture the first ground-based image of Comet 31-Atlas earlier this year. 

The LDT’s greatest boon as a planetary defense tool is its rapid response capability. It can be operated remotely from anywhere in the world, allowing researchers to take over the telescope quickly during an emergency. 

“This rapid response could be vital when we have short notice before a potential impact,” says Moskovitz. 

Plan and Coordinate

This is the diplomatic layer of planetary defense, where hard science meets international relations and emergency management.

NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) serves as the official conduit for all asteroid-related information in the United States, ensuring that data from telescopes like the LDT are translated into actionable intelligence for the government. Crucially, this office remains a civilian entity. 

Keeping the discipline under NASA’s jurisdiction rather than the U.S. Space Force or the Department of War (formerly the Department of Defense) ensures that the work of scientists is viewed through a lens of global transparency and scientific cooperation rather than a tactical one. As Moskovitz notes, “It demilitarizes our activity… we can start with the science before it ever goes to the military.”

Because an asteroid strike is a global threat, the response must be international. This is handled by the Space Mission Planning Advisory Group (SMPAG), a UN-convened body where global space agencies coordinate their asteroid response playbooks. Here, representatives operate on strict, agreed-upon thresholds before the alarm is raised. 

“We’re not going to bother the heads of state if a little tiny rock is going to come in,” explains Moskovitz. “But if it gets large enough to be a concern, then absolutely, you want to notify heads of state. Particularly if they’re in the landing zone.”

As an object approaches the 140-meter threshold, the size of a football stadium and the point at which an impact becomes catastrophic, the UN sends out the call for leaders to put their emergency plans into action. 

In addition to public safety, the flow of information is vital for preventing global conflict. During the 2013 Chelyabinsk Event, a 20-meter asteroid exploded in the air above the southern Ural region in Russia with the force of 30 nuclear bombs. 

At a time of strained international relations, the fact that this was immediately recognized as a natural event and not a military strike was a triumph of planetary defense communication. By framing these events as natural disasters akin to earthquakes or hurricanes rather than “attacks,” scientists and diplomats can help to ensure that an asteroid doesn’t inadvertently trigger a conflict between countries. 

Once a threat is confirmed to be unavoidable, astronomers pass the baton to emergency managers. Just as they would for a hurricane, FEMA handles the ground-level response. This includes everything from mobilizing emergency personnel to disseminating life-saving information, such as the “Don’t look out the window” directive used to prevent shattered glass injuries from an asteroid’s shockwave, which left over 1500 people hospitalized in the aftermath of the Chelyabinsk event. 

The final, and perhaps most difficult, part of planetary defense coordination is managing public perception. In an era of clickbait headlines, Moskovitz and his peers often find themselves performing “science therapy.”

“People can get really worked up,” says Moskovitz. “They need a therapist, almost. They say, ‘I’m losing sleep over this. What do I do? How bad is it?’ Much of that is just the way articles are written to sensationalize things beyond the reasonable hazard that actually exists.”

The ultimate goal of planetary defense communication is to move the public from a state of fear to a state of preparation. By replacing sensationalist headlines with clear, grounded facts, the scientific community ensures that if the day of an impact ever comes, people will feel prepared rather than panicked. 

Mitigate

This section is where the “defense” in planetary defense becomes literal. According to Moskovitz, mitigation is a game of precise orbital mechanics and long-term planning, not the exciting nuclear explosion a Hollywood portrayal might prefer. 

Based on the results of the DART mission, we now know that a DART-sized kinetic impactor (a spacecraft designed to intentionally crash into an object to change its orbit) can deflect an asteroid 160-meters in size by about 100 kilometers per year. “That means you would have to impact an object of that size 60 years before impact to deflect it by a distance equal to Earth’s radius,” says Moskovitz. DART was the first-ever mission dedicated to investigating and demonstrating one method of asteroid deflection by changing an asteroid’s motion in space through kinetic impact.

While the “kinetic nudge” used by DART is currently our only proven tool, it is far from the only option in the planetary defense toolkit. For missions with decades of lead time, scientists have proposed more elegant, “slow-push” methods that could offer much higher precision. These include gravity tractors, which involves a heavy spacecraft simply hovering near an asteroid and using its own tiny gravitational pull to tug it off course, and laser ablation, where the surface of an asteroid is zapped with a laser to create a jet of vaporized rock that acts like a rocket thruster. There is also the ion-beam shepherd, a concept that uses the exhaust from a spacecraft’s ion engines to provide a gentle “head wind” to slowly push an asteroid away over time.

The choice between these methods depends on what the asteroid is made of, which relates back to the critical work being done with the LDT. Without the telescope’s ability to characterize an object’s composition and structural integrity, choosing a mitigation strategy would be pure guesswork. After all, you don’t want to use the hammer-like force of a kinetic impactor on an object that requires the more delicate method of a gravity tractor.

While it may be some time before we need to launch a kinetic impactor or evacuate an imperiled city, the work being done at facilities like the LDT ensures that we stay one step ahead of cosmic threats. By replacing asteroid anxiety with actionable plans and international cooperation, experts like Moskovitz ensure that when we look to the stars, we can do so with the confidence that we have the tools, plans, and resources to protect our home.

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After years of anticipation, the Star-Planet Activity Research CubeSat (SPARCS) has seen first light, sending its first round of ultraviolet images back to Earth on February 6, 2026. For Principal Investigator Dr. Evgenya Shkolnik and her collaborative team of students, researchers, and scientists — including Lowell’s Dr. Joe Llama — achieving first light marks the moment that SPARCS shifted from an educational tool and tech demo to a functional observatory. 

“To see those first images beamed back down to Earth from our little CubeSat was just amazing,” says Llama. 

A CubeSat, or Cube Satellite, is a compact, standardized satellite used primarily in low-Earth orbit. Due to their small size and use of commercial, off-the-shelf components, they are significantly cheaper to build and launch than traditional satellites.

Roughly the size and shape of a large cereal box, SPARCS was designed to monitor flares and sunspot activity on low-mass stars, also known as M-type stars, M stars, or M dwarfs. These small, dim, cool stars are only 30% to 70% the mass of our Sun and are among the most common in the Milky Way, hosting the majority of the galaxy’s estimated 50 billion “habitable zone” terrestrial planets. 

Being in low-Earth orbit, SPARCS is able to observe in wavelengths that are blocked by Earth’s atmosphere. Despite being observationally challenging to observe, these wavelengths are fundamental to understanding how environmental variations in space driven by solar activity can impact the atmosphere of a potentially habitable exoplanet. While Earth’s atmosphere is essential for life, it acts as an opaque barrier to ultraviolet light and absorbs most UV radiation before it ever reaches ground-based telescopes. To see these wavelengths, scientists have to get an eye above the ozone layer and the thickest parts of our atmosphere. Even from space, these photons are ‘high-energy’ and elusive, requiring specialized, high-sensitivity detectors to capture them before they scatter. 

M stars are notoriously “moody” in their solar activity, tending to flare 100 times more than our own Sun. For a star, a “flare” refers to a sudden, dramatic, and unpredictable increase in brightness that can range from minutes to hours in length. The massive amounts of radiation released by flares can strip Earth-sized planets of their atmospheres, rendering them uninhabitable. By capturing first light, SPARCS has proven that it can track the solar activity of these stars with the precision needed to determine if their orbiting planets could potentially support life.

This milestone also proves that groundbreaking research doesn’t require a billion-dollar budget. As a CubeSat, SPARCS offers a cost-effective way to test advanced infrared detector technology developed at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). By providing a better understanding of stellar flares, the CubeSat will help scientists interpret data from larger operations like the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) and refine the search for the next habitable world by acting as a ‘scout’ to tell these larger telescopes exactly where to look. 

So, what’s next for SPARCS? The telescope is now on track to provide an unprecedented amount of ultraviolet data on low-mass stars, which will prove invaluable in the interpretation of data from JWST and NASA’s next flagship mission, the Habitable Worlds Observatory. 

Over the course of its one-year mission, the miniature satellite is set to target approximately 20 low-mass stars and observe them over durations of five to 45 days. First light is just the beginning for SPARCS as it joins humanity’s search for a habitable planet beyond our own.

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Astronomers have long known that comets are unpredictable, but now they are beginning to understand just how dramatically these dirty iceballs can change. New research shows that Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresák not only slowed its rotation during its 2017 visit to the inner solar system but eventually reversed its spin direction. This marks the first time scientists have ever documented a comet flipping the direction of its rotation, and observations made using several telescopes at Lowell Observatory were essential to uncovering the phenomenon.

The story begins in March 2017, when Lowell Observatory scientist Dave Schleicher led a study using Lowell’s 4.3-meter Discovery Channel Telescope (now known as the Lowell Discovery Telescope [LDT]), 1.1-meter John S. Hall Telescope, and a 0.8 robotic telescope, to measure the comet’s rotation period as it approached the Sun. These observations provided the baseline for understanding how the comet was behaving before solar heating intensified its activity. Without this early dataset, scientists would not have recognized how dramatically the comet’s spin was about to change.

Just two months later, scientists using the Neil Gehrels Swift Observatory observed the comet again and found that it was spinning three times more slowly than when measured with the Lowell Observatory telescopes.  This dramatic slowdown over such a short period immediately suggested that powerful forces were acting on the comet’s tiny nucleus.

Then came observations using the Hubble Space Telescope in December 2017. Instead of continuing to slow, the comet was spinning rapidly again—but in the opposite direction. Its rotation period had sped up to about 14 hours, compared to the 46–60 hours measured earlier that year.

The simplest explanation is that jets of gas erupting from the comet’s surface acted like natural thrusters. As sunlight warmed the nucleus, frozen ices vaporized and escaped as jets. Because 41P’s nucleus is extremely small—only about 0.6 miles (1 km) across—these jets were powerful enough to slow the comet nearly to a stop and then push it into reverse.

“The stopping and reversing of the rotation of T-G-K was predicted, and we are gratified to having our prediction proved correct,” says Schleicher.

“Most comets of this size probably change their rotation on comparable or shorter timescales,” adds Lowell Observatory Percival Lowell Postdoctoral Fellow Qicheng Zhang. “They just tend to not pass close enough to Earth for these changes to be observable. In many cases, they’re just destroyed before we ever get a second look at the rotation.”

Comet 41P is changing in other ways as well. Its activity level in 2017 was ten times lower than during its 2001 passage, suggesting that its surface is evolving quickly as volatile ices deplete or become buried beneath dust. 

Models indicate that if its rotation continues to shift, the comet could eventually become unstable and break apart. This makes 41P a valuable natural laboratory for studying how small bodies evolve, shed material, and sometimes destroy themselves.

The breakthrough was made possible by the combined strengths of ground-based and space-based observatories. The early 2017 measurements at Lowell Observatory captured the comet before its behavior changed, Swift documented the dramatic slowdown, and Hubble revealed the reversal. And archival data preserved the evidence for researchers to uncover years later. Together, these observations offer a rare look at a comet undergoing rapid evolution.

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Are you ready to travel 13.8 billion years into the past or leap forward into the future of Mars exploration? How about a journey across the observable universe? We’re over the Moon to announce a brand-new lineup of short films in the Lowell Universe Theater. Read on to see what’s showing now!*

*Additional ticket purchase required. 

Passport to the Universe

Runtime: 19 minutes | Suitable for: Ages 6+

This captivating introduction to cosmology was developed in collaboration with the American Museum of Natural History, NASA, and the California Academy of Sciences.

The familiar voice of Tom Hanks guides you on a journey from Earth to the very edge of the observable Universe. You’ll fly beneath the rings of Saturn, float through the heart of the Orion Nebula, and even plunge into a black hole as you explore humanity’s place in the vast cosmos, all from the comfort of your theater seat! 

We Are Stars

Runtime: 26 minutes | Suitable for: Ages 6+

What are we made of? Where did it all come from? Join the “Time Master” (voiced by Hollywood’s Andy Serkis) and a troupe of Victorian time-travelers on a stunning 13.8-billion-year adventure.

This film uses breathtaking supercomputer simulations from Durham University to make complex science accessible and beautiful. It’s a poetic exploration of cosmic chemistry that connects every living thing on Earth to the very first moments of the Universe.

One Step Beyond: A Journey to Mars

Runtime: 25 minutes | Suitable for: Ages 5+ (Note: Features intense sights and sounds)

The Moon was just the beginning. One Step Beyond takes you into the heart of NASA’s Artemis program as humanity prepares for its boldest chapter yet: Mars.

Winner of the 2025 Audience Award at the Fulldome Festival Brno, this film puts you inside the cockpit for thrilling launches and landings. Experience the cutting-edge technology and the search for life that could transform our understanding of our place in the cosmos. 

Sensory Note: This show includes powerful sound and dynamic visual effects that may be intense for very young children.

Plan Your Visit

Film tickets must be purchased in-person at the front desk of the Astronomy Discovery Center. For showtimes and ticket prices, please visit https://lowell.edu/visit/lowell-universe-theater-showtimes/. We’ll see you at the movies!

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