The Sun emits a solar wind of charged particles reaching speeds of more than a million miles per hour, bursts of energetic ultraviolet photons, huge blobs of ionized gas called coronal mass ejections and other phenomena which effect the near Earth environment. A team of scientists present a comprehensive network of ground based instruments and analysis tools called the Chinese Meridian Project. This research project has been established to provide stereoscopic, comprehensive, monitoring of space weather from the Sun to the near Earth environment. Although the authors state its results will be shared with the international community such knowledge will provide a powerful advantage to the nation operating it.

A stony asteroid 130m or about 430 feet in diameter has a mass of 3 billion Kg or 6.5 billion pounds. Such an object is likely to strike the Earth every 11,000 years or so creating a crater a mile in diameter crater and inflicting damage over a hurricane sized footprint on the surface of our planet. If one like this were found to be heading straight for us deflecting it would take some ingenuity. The key is early discovery so that perhaps a gentle nudge would do the trick. How do do we test such an idea before we are in a situation where the test occurs on an incoming impactor where failure is not a good option?

Most humans live in cities under a dome of light pollution. They have never witnessed that the natural night sky is not dark; but rather it is alive with it's own lights.To see for yourself, pick a natural night sky location near you like the Cosmic Campground International Dark Sky Sanctuary in New Mexico and recruit a friend.

2008 TC3 was discovered by my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Richard Kowalski on October 6, 2008. It is the first of only 9 asteroids which humans have tracked traveling through space, have seen exploding in our atmosphere, and have been able walk up to pieces on the Earth's surface.

One of the joys of visiting a natural night sky location on a clear dark of the Moon night is to observe meteors streaking across the sky. It took more than 2,000 years for humans to figure out at meteors and comets are related.

Recently, my Catalina Team Captain Eric Christensen discovered a potentially hazardous 3,000 foot diameter asteroid, 2017 CH1. Asteroid hunters are discovering less than one asteroid of this size or greater per month. Eric's discovery, 2017 CH1, has an orbit which can bring it to about twice the Moon's distance from planet Earth. Although it will not come anywhere near Earth in the foreseeable future, asteroid hunters will continue to monitor 2017 CH1's orbit to make sure that it remains no threat to planet Earth.

About 66 million years ago a 6 to 9 mile diameter asteroid traveling at approximately 12 miles per second slammed into the Gulf of Mexico off of the modern coastline of the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. Ants survived, flourished, and developed agriculture while other species went extinct.

A winter storm hit Mt. Lemmon, Arizona closing access to the observatory by blowing over trees and producing large snow drifts. After the Mountain Operations Crew cleared the road, my Catalina Sky Survey teammate Greg Leonard was able to make his way to the top and discover an asteroid which could be visited by human astronauts. Greg's new 120 foot diameter space rock , named 2017 BV93, spends most of its time between Earth and Venus as it orbits the Sun once every 346 days.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate David Rankin’s regular job is asteroid hunting at the telescope and creating software to improve detection as well as to better keep track of space rocks that come near our home planet. During his time off, in his backyard in Tucson, Arizona, David has built and operates equipment to track meteors, a seismograph to detect Earthquakes, and a small observatory to discover asteroids.

If Lunar and Martian colonists are to have chips and salsa they will need grow their own tomatoes. To test methods to do this German Aerospace Center or DLR has developed the EU:CROPIS satellite which will be launched by a Space-X Falcon 9 rocket into low Earth orbit sometime in 2017. Once in orbit the satellite will be programmed to rotate at two different speeds on its own axis to produce Lunar gravity for 6 months and then Martian gravity for the next 6 months. Inside the satellite tomato seeds will germinate and grow under the watchful eyes of 16 onboard cameras. A trickle filter containing the Euglena [U gleen a] microbes will use synthetic urine to produce fertilizer for the tomato plants. The half plant half animal Euglena microorganisms will produce oxygen on the satellite and protect the plants against excessive ammonia build up. LED lights will provide the day night cycle required by both the plants and the Euglena microbes. The separate Lunar and Martian space green houses will operate in a pressure tank to simulate Earth's atmosphere. These experiments will be carefully controlled and monitored by humans on the ground.

My Catalina Sky Survey teammate Kacper Wierzchos was asteroid hunting with our Schmidt telescope on Mt. Bigelow, Arizona when he discovered and reported a fuzzy looking unknown object in a set of his images. There is no chance of an impact from Kacper's discovery, P/2019 Y3 (Catalina), in the foreseeable future.