{"id":143171,"date":"2021-06-07T11:05:46","date_gmt":"2021-06-07T21:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=143171"},"modified":"2021-06-07T11:05:46","modified_gmt":"2021-06-07T21:05:46","slug":"lunar-eclipse-aids-in-locating-nso","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2021\/06\/07\/lunar-eclipse-aids-in-locating-nso\/","title":{"rendered":"Lunar eclipse aids in locating 3 Near-Earth asteroids"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Total lunar eclipse in progress over Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> on May 26. (Photo credit: Alex Dzierba)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Every night, the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> Pan-STARRS telescopes on Hakeakal\u0101 scan the sky for Near-Earth Objects (NEO<\/abbr>s), asteroids or comets that may come close to or even hit Earth in the future. The search is funded by NASA<\/abbr>\u2019s Near-Earth Object Observations Program<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For a few days each month, the bright full Moon hinders the search by making the sky brighter, which makes it more difficult to see these faint objects. So on May 26, when Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> was in line for prime viewing of the total lunar eclipse—when the full Moon enters Earth\u2019s shadow\u2013observers at Pan-STARRS capitalized on this opportunity to observe with the darkened sky.<\/p>\n

As a particular NEO<\/abbr> moves about the Sun, its orbit may occasionally bring it to where it can be observed from Earth, but sometimes that window of opportunity may only be a few days. A lunar eclipse might allow astronomers to catch faint NEO<\/abbr>s during a time when they might otherwise be missed because of a bright full Moon.<\/p>\n