Sunday, May 17, 2009 9:11 PM CDT
Watching for asteroids: Local man keeps eyes on the sky
By TONY REID, Staff Writer
CHARLESTON — Sleep tight: Robert E. Holmes Jr. is keeping watch.
While we’re all safely tucked up in bed, he’s cranked back the roof on his backyard observatory in the sticks near Charleston. He then gets busy photographing the heavens using super-cooled cameras (it makes them work better) that he’s strapped to a 2-ton telescope with a 32-inch mirror he built himself.
Holmes hunts the heavens via computer and scans for telltale moving smudges of light; and maybe one day, one of those smudges just might turn out to be the cosmic bullet with Earth’s name on it.
This variety of celestial firepower consists of “killer asteroids,” which sounds like something for which you need industrial strength Preparation H, but is much worse. Asteroids are bits of rock ranging in size from pebbles to a 950-mile-long one called “Ceres,” and they careen around our solar system like stray bullets.
Holmes says these things actually travel at speeds 21 times faster than a rifle shot, and any space rock about a mile wide that strikes Earth will hit hard enough to leave all mankind sleeping the Big Sleep. Scientists believe the last time this happened was 55 million years ago, just when T-Rex and the dinosaur ensemble had been on a roll.
Then, bang. Game over.
So when the next Earth-killer asteroid lines up for its apocalyptic trajectory, it would be nice to see it coming. Which brings us back to Holmes, and the telescope he painted deep red because he likes the color. The fire engine paint scheme also imparts a sense of urgency, which Holmes says isn’t misplaced.
“To give you a for-instance, in 2029 an 897-foot wide asteroid called ‘Apophis’ is going to swing past,” says the 53-year-old astronomer.
“And it is going to pass so close it will come between the Earth and the satellites you get DirectTV off of.”
Yikes.
But Holmes remains optimistic. He believes that if a killer asteroid can be spotted while it is still, say, 50 to 100 years away, that will give NASA enough time to head it off at the solar pass, as it were. He talks of “gravity tractor” concepts, using gravity-generating probes to tug Earth-trajectory rocks onto new courses. Or intercepting asteroids with spacecraft using nuclear blasts to nudge their targets off in safer directions. It sounds Hollywood, but Holmes says it’s solid, feasible stuff.
“And I hope I do find one of those asteroids,” he says. “Because then we’ll have plenty of time to do something about it. If we can’t find the one that’s heading towards us, that’s when we’re in trouble.”
Holmes is an optimistic kind of guy, and it’s hard to blame him. After all, he’s living his dream. A former freelance photographer who shot stuff like glossy spreads on lipstick for teen titles like Seventeen, he’s been in love with watching the heavens as a hobby since his parents presented him with his first telescope from Kmart when he was 11.
The passion for astronomy grew as he spent long years gazing into countless starry, starry nights. Entirely self-taught, he has been credited with the discovery of new supernovas (exploded stars), and he’s kept boldly going with his cameras where no man had gone before.
Giving up his photography business to work for NASA’s Near Earth Object Observations Program full time was his dream gig, but reaching for the stars is never easy.
“They wanted to see how good I am, and I ended up working for a year for them for free to show what I can do,” Holmes explains. “I did that in 2006, and then they said ‘OK, you got it.’ As for the number of people dedicated to what I do at the level I’m doing it, well, there’s probably about 10 on the planet; it’s a very small group.”
Basically, the asteroid hunt goes like this: NASA usually spots the asteroids itself initially, and then sends Holmes coordinates of likely candidates for him to track. “They want to keep their telescopes discovering new asteroids, so they don’t have time to chase the ones they’ve found down again and then figure out what their orbit is,” he says.
“They need somebody else out here figuring out what those asteroid orbits are: me.”
Holmes’ computer-controlled telescope does the tracking, and he crunches the numbers to calculate the orbits. The results are e-mailed to the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University, which maintains an asteroid database of those that might ultimately spoil our day here on terra firma.
The quality of Holmes’ work is getting noticed. The California-based Planetary Society, of which Carl Sagan was one of the founders, recently gave him a big grant to help buy a new, super-sophisticated camera. NASA has also awarded him a grant to further his efforts, which now include building an even bigger telescope, and his observations consistently earn top ratings for the quality of their science.
Holmes calls his operation the Astronomical Research Institute, and last year he made 11,573 observations tracking 6,251 asteroids, of which more than 1,000 have already been classed as “potentially hazardous.”
“But my real claim to fame, I suppose, is that I can track very faint objects for very long distances,” he says, explaining that his telescope could see a 2-inch round ball bearing from 1,000 miles away. “On Jan. 3, for example, I detected an object 10 million times fainter than your eye can see.”
Holmes labors alone, but he’s got friends and assistants all over the world. He’s worked to develop a network of some 130 high schools and colleges in 17 countries who get e-mailed copies of his telescope’s pictures and whose students then help crunch the numbers to work out the asteroid orbits.
“I check every piece of information that comes back in, but their work is real good,” says Holmes, who rewards his student astronomers with engraved “Killer Asteroid Project” wooden plaques, which must make quite a buzz on school awards days.
“And beginning in just a few days, we’re going to have a campaign that will use three universities and 22 schools in Africa,” he adds. “Getting the schools involved is what is so cool about this project.”
On his Web site, Holmes frets that the percentage of young people turned on by astronomy has faded dramatically over the years, and he wants to do what he can to reverse that.
Giving kids the chance to track potentially Earth-smashing asteroids on their classroom computers is certainly one way of generating some enthusiasm. He knows of at least two students at the appropriately named Cape Fear High School in North Carolina who, after being involved with his tracking work, are now off to university to study astronomy.
“What’s it all worth if you can’t inspire others?” says Holmes. “I feel like I am a totally, totally fortunate man.”
And, as job descriptions go, telling strangers at parties that you track killer asteroids for a living is pretty hard to top. “I think people are pretty impressed when they hear that,” says his wife, Jackie. “I think it’s pretty cool, anyway.”
She also has a namesake zipping along 200 million miles out in space: a twirling asteroid measuring 30 miles across that was first discovered by her husband in 2004 and named by him in her honor.
His wife had only agreed to become an asteroid, however, after being reassured this one had virtually a zero chance of wiping out its namesake and the rest of humanity.
Contact Tony Reid at treid@herald-review.com or 421-7977.
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mickeygarlock wrote on May 17, 2009 9:38 PM: