NEW MEXICO COLLEGE
OF AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS
PHYSICAL SCIENCE LABORATORY
Mr. Henry Aurand
General Electric Co.
Santa Barbara, California
Enclosed is a copy of the "Interim Report on Search for Small Earth
Satellites for the period 1953-56", which summarizes the aims, theory and
methods of the search.
Note the fundamental differences in the methods of the various types of
"Observational Procedures, I, II, III XI. Since this was written, we have
employed Types XII and XIII. Each was devised to best meet the geometrical
circuir.stan.ces of the zone explored.
We have had several-faint satellite suspects near the limit of detection, for
which reason may poseibly be spurious. Considerable effort was expended to
recover the more promising ones, but without success. We have not confirmed
the existence of a single natural satellite. Consequently, we are of the opinion
that "satellite space" is remarkably empty and free of danger and mis-identification
from natural satellites. However, there is evidence of having observed half a dozen
tiny asteroids brushing by the earth in their elliptical journeys around the sun.
It is reasonable to think that the big meteorite falls (such as the great Siberian
Tall in 1947) were actually collisions with similar bodies. In fact there is no real
demarcation between asteroids and meteorites. No recovered landed meteorite,
whose fall was observed, belongs to any known cometary meteor radiant. Stony
and nickel-iron meteorites apparently are just tiny asteroids (whose orbits cross
the earth's) and probably are of asteroidal origin. The smaller they are, the
more numerous. These objects are unpredictable since they are observable once
only by accident and thus their orbital elements are unknown. Naturally, they
constitute some hazard.
We are preparing a large, Final Technical Report of all of our satellite searching including the work at Quito, Ecuador. Ws expect to publish it by the end of 1958.
It was good to talk with you over the phone.
Sincerely yours,
CLYDE W. TOMBAUGH
Astri
NMSU Department of Astronomy: Clyde W. Tombaugh Papers
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Ms0407pp083004_0010001.tif
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Scan produced from physical item held by the NMSU Library Archives & Special Collections Department
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Text
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image/tiff
Language
eng
OCR
NEW MEXICO COLLEGE
OF AGRICULTURE AND MECHANIC ARTS
PHYSICAL SCIENCE LABORATORY
Mr. Henry Aurand
General Electric Co.
Santa Barbara, California
Enclosed is a copy of the "Interim Report on Search for Small Earth
Satellites for the period 1953-56", which summarizes the aims, theory and
methods of the search.
Note the fundamental differences in the methods of the various types of
"Observational Procedures, I, II, III XI. Since this was written, we have
employed Types XII and XIII. Each was devised to best meet the geometrical
circuir.stan.ces of the zone explored.
We have had several-faint satellite suspects near the limit of detection, for
which reason may poseibly be spurious. Considerable effort was expended to
recover the more promising ones, but without success. We have not confirmed
the existence of a single natural satellite. Consequently, we are of the opinion
that "satellite space" is remarkably empty and free of danger and mis-identification
from natural satellites. However, there is evidence of having observed half a dozen
tiny asteroids brushing by the earth in their elliptical journeys around the sun.
It is reasonable to think that the big meteorite falls (such as the great Siberian
Tall in 1947) were actually collisions with similar bodies. In fact there is no real
demarcation between asteroids and meteorites. No recovered landed meteorite,
whose fall was observed, belongs to any known cometary meteor radiant. Stony
and nickel-iron meteorites apparently are just tiny asteroids (whose orbits cross
the earth's) and probably are of asteroidal origin. The smaller they are, the
more numerous. These objects are unpredictable since they are observable once
only by accident and thus their orbital elements are unknown. Naturally, they
constitute some hazard.
We are preparing a large, Final Technical Report of all of our satellite searching including the work at Quito, Ecuador. Ws expect to publish it by the end of 1958.
It was good to talk with you over the phone.
Sincerely yours,
CLYDE W. TOMBAUGH
Astri
