Carson Fuls, UA Senior Operations Engineer/Scientist
Wednesday, March 15,
2023, 2:30 pm,
ASA Koffler Great Room & Zoom
With its large telescopes atop Mt. Lemmon and Mt. Bigelow, the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) is a world leader in discovering and following natural objects that might impact the Earth. It is a University of Arizona effort funded by NASA’s congressionally mandated program to discover and track 90% of all Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) larger than 140 meters across. Paleological evidence shows that NEOs can cause worldwide devastation and mass extinctions. However, because of the search for NEOs and the possible diversion of their trajectories by actions such as the recent DART mission, an NEO impact is one of the only natural disasters we can possibly predict and prevent.
Carson Fuls presentation will cover the history of CSS, its telescopes, its nightly operations looking for and following NEOs, and some of its most notable discoveries. It has been in operation since 1999 and has found close to half of all known NEOs.
Carson has been with the Catalina Sky Survey since 2015. In addition to making observations, he has helped design and build many of the current CSS hardware and software systems, including NEOfixer, a public software tool for planning observations of NEOs. He is also a volunteer with the Southern Arizona Rescue Association.
Compiled and edited by Marcia Neugebauer, Academy Village volunteer.
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