Astronomy professor tracks large asteroid

Astronomy professor William Keel and Timmy Brockett, a senior majoring in physics, watched asteroid 2007 TU24 as it raced across the sky Tuesday night.

"An asteroid is a chunk of the rock that is too small to be classified as a planet," Keel said. "Their size can range from a grain of sand to about 500 miles across."

The asteroid that Keel and Brockett viewed is about 800 feet larger than the asteroid that left the mile-wide crater in Arizona.

"If it hit [the crater] would be approximately 3 to 5 miles across, which is larger than any nuclear test ever carried out," Keel said.

Keel and Brockett tracked the asteroid with a high-powered telescope. At first, Keel said, the object was moving so fast that it could not be captured in pictures. Keel said he had rarely seen objects beyond Earth's orbit move so quickly.

"It was moving at 17,000 miles per hour," Brockett said. "It was moving so quickly that it appeared that the stars were streaking around it and it was stationary."

Keel said tracking this asteroid would not have been possible before Gallalee Hall was renovated three years ago and an updated telescope was installed.

"The past telescope was hostile to digital images," Keel said. "Now we can have students practice their study without leaving the building."

The viewing was not open to the public because of the limited amount of telescopes. Keel said only one person could be at the eyepiece at the "magic moment."

Instead of opening it to the public, Keel wanted to record the experience and post it on the UA astronomy Web site, allowing anyone who is interested to see it for themselves. Tuesday's cloud coverage, however, kept the video from showing through.

"The cooled digital imaging camera came through for us, which is really good because someone from Channel 42 showed up. There is a picture online where we tracked the stars and let the asteroid streak across the sky," Keel said

Brockett said students who are interested in astronomy can come to the open houses hosted by the department of physics and astronomy. The next event will be the lunar eclipse, which should occur on Feb. 20 at 7:30 p.m.

"It's really cool to tell friends that you've seen something that many people won't get a chance to see," Brockett said. "You see some really cool stuff when you look through a telescope."