Chris Miko to Defend Thesis on July 17th
Space Studies M.S. candidate, Chris Miko, will defend his thesis as follows. All Space Studies students and faculty are encouraged to show your support by attending.
When: Friday, July 17th at 3:00 pm (Central DST)
Where: online only – see details below
Title: “PHOTOMETRIC STUDY OF TWO NEAR-EARTH ASTEROIDS IN THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY MOVING OBJECTS CATALOG”
About the topic: Classifying asteroids by color and spectral features is important for understanding their compositions, linkages to meteorite types, and formation and evolution of the Solar System in general. Large data collection efforts such as the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) have allowed for more comprehensive studies of the asteroid population. However, the repeatability and therefore reliability of such observations comes into question, especially as Szabo et al. (2004) and Carvano et al. (2010) reported sizable fractions of asteroids observed by SDSS exhibiting taxonomic variability. This research studied two near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) with just one observation each by SDSS: 2059 Baboquivari and 96744 (1999 OW3). Observations using the 1 m Yale/SMARTS telescope at Cerro-Tololo International Observatory (CTIO) were conducted in order to investigate whether g, r, i, and z spectrophotometry was consistent with spectrophotometry by SDSS.
Advisor: Dr. Ron Fevig
About the Presenter: Christopher Miko is an active duty Air Force officer currently serving as an ROTC instructor at Purdue University, IN. He has a bachelor’s degree in physics and astronomy from Valparaiso University, IN and is a current distance student at University of North Dakota. He has had a passion for space his entire life, and studying asteroids is just one expression of it. In his free time, he enjoys spending time with his wife, two dogs, running, and his church.
Join us online via one of two formats:
Via Zoom video conferencing. Questions for the speaker may be posted at this site during the presentation.
https://und.zoom.us/j/327372990
meeting number: 327-372-990
A simple live webcast will be available at https://aero.und.edu/stream/