Wish you could
discover an asteroid?

You just might
at the
Challenger Space Center!

Thanks to an agreement between Minor Planet Research (MPR) and the Challenger Space Center, an Asteroid Discovery Station (ADS) will be installed at the Challenger Space Center. The Asteroid Discovery Station provides professional-level opportunities for students and the general public to make discoveries of solar system objects, particularly main belt asteroids. Students, teachers, and the public using the Asteroid Discovery Station will log on to the MPR portal at the Challenger Space Center to download images provided by the Lowell Observatory. These images constitute “virgin” data. As Near Earth Objects (NEOs) are observed, student detection reports will be reviewed by MPR for content and completeness, and forwarded to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts for confirmation. The successful discoveries will receive official recognition and credit.

MPR’s research programs are conducted under the leadership of Dr. Edward L.G. Bowell of the Lowell Observatory’s Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) program, and Dr. Daniel D. Durda of the Southwest Research Institute. MPR recently announced the discovery of the closest asteroid ever known to pass the Earth without hitting the atmosphere (2003 SQ222), discovered by Observer Bob Cash, using software designed by Robert Denny of Mesa, Arizona, and images provided by the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff.

Based in Fountain Hills, Arizona, Minor Planet Research is dedicated to the search for, and physical studies of, asteroids and comets, particularly Near Earth Objects (NEOs). NEOs are asteroids or comets that pose a potential collision hazard with Earth by virtue of their mass, velocity, and orbital paths through space.