The Air Force Used a Tiny Telescope to Spot an Asteroid—Here's Why That Matters
Though the telescope targeted a tiny body in space, it could train its eye on enemy satellites in the future.
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Though the telescope targeted a tiny body in space, it could train its eye on enemy satellites in the future.
By RYAN BOETEL | Albuquerque Journal, N.M. | Published: February 8, 2021 ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (Tribune News Service) — Using a once-classified, cutting-edge telescope to scour the heavens, Jack Drummond studies "the little guys in our solar system." An astronomer at the Starfire Optical Range at Kirtland Air Force Base, Drummond has made a career out of studying small asteroids — and the even smaller moons that orbit them. Last month, Drummond and his team published an article in the Icarus International Journal of Solar System Studies about the 3-mile-wide moon Olympias, which orbits an ...
AFRL Astronomer Observes New Asteroid Satellite AFRL News: KIRTLAND AIR FORCE BASE — “I was wrong,” said Air Force Research Laboratory researcher, Dr. Jack Drummond, when looking back to his early research on asteroids and their orbiting moons. Drummond is an astronomer at AFRL’s Directed Energy Directorate Starfire Optical Range (SOR) on Kirtland Air Force Base. First as a government civil servant, and now as a Leidos contractor supporting AFRL, he has spent decades studying the solar system, and his research has often focused on asteroid satellites. Just what was he “wrong” abou...