Follow up to last week’s trivia!

Last week we asked 

1. Which asteroid did the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa land on? and
2. What group of near earth asteroids did this asteroid belong to?

The answer to question one is Itokawa, and according to Wikipedia it was named after Hideo Itokawa, a Japanese Rocket Scientist. Indeed, Dr. Itokawa was a prominent figure in the Japanese space program, being known as Dr. Rocket, and also as “the father of Japanese space development.”

In answer to question 2, asteroid Itokawa belongs to the near-Earth group called Apollo, which we highlighted in last week’s article. At this juncture we have to make a slight correction to last week’s post. In it we said “…Apollo asteroids have semi-major axes that are greater than 1 AU, but less than 1.017 AU” which is only partially true. Apollo asteroids do indeed have a semi-major axis value greater than 1 AU, but it is the perihelion that is less than 1.017 AU. What is a perihelion? From Wikipedia, 

“The perihelion is the point in the orbit of a planet, asteroid or comet where it is nearest to the sun.”

To be completely thorough in our correction from last week, we’ll also correct what we said about the Amor group of asteroids. We said, “their semi-major axes range from 1.017 AU to 1.3 AU.” In actuality, their perihelion is from 1.017 AU to 1.30 AU, and semi-major axis values are greater than 1 AU. 

Unfortunately, we didn’t receive any answer on our Facebook page. But, the good news is we can save the Amazon gift card for a future trivia question.

Everthing you ever wanted to know about asteroids…

As part of our on going series about asteroid mining, we present the following details about asteroids, and what exactly a near-Earth asteroid is. Along the way you’ll learn about astronomical units, semi-major axes, and how many times an asteroid has been landed upon.

For more on this series, please read our interviews with Stott Space CEO Isaac Stott here, and here. Also read the piece that got it all started. Stay tuned for more!

Lastly, towards the end of this article you’ll learn about an asteroid mission that took 7 years, and is the only mission to have landed a spacecraft on an asteroid, take a sample, and return to earth. Do the following,

1. Click the “like” button in the sidebar
2. Like us on Facebook

   Three near-Earth groups are defined according to their orbits, more specifically their semi-major axes. What the deuce is a semi-major axis? Well, it is based on an ellipse (orbits follow elliptical paths), and is analogous to the radius of a circle. The difference is that the radius of an ellipse is not constant (this is what makes it an ellipse) so a few more tricks have to be used. Essentially, if you look at an ellipse you’ll find a maximum “radius” and a minimum. The semi-major axis would be the maximum radius [3]…wait, school is out for summer.

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Fact Checking Think Progress Fact Checks…

Today while monitoring Twitter I noticed this article posted by Think Progress. It is titled,

Fact Check: ‘Non-Citizen’ Voter in James O’Keefe’s Voter Fraud Video is Actually a Citizen

So as I fan of Project Veritas, I had to go see what was up. Think Progress was appalled to find that in a new video from Project Veritas, these wayward journalists claimed that one non-citizen Zbigniew Gorzkowski voted in NC, but ThinkProgress found that HE IS a U.S. citizen. Terrible stuff that!  

Well, Think Progress is depending on their readership to not fact checking the fact checks, because their article is a wild misrepresentation of O’Keefe’s video. In the video, Gorzkowski refuses to indicated whether or not he is a citizen. Besides that, the point is, is that according to the latest public records, Mr. Gorzkowski was listed as a non-citizen, and thus should not have been allowed to vote. Maybe he is a citizen, but not according to the public records.

Lastly, there is far more in the video than this isolated case. It is a 10 minute video that exposes disregard for the constitution, in addition to what could be described at best as apathy about voter fraud, and at worst condoning it.