#acm2026 — Public Fediverse posts

Thanks again go to the organizers of #ACM2026 for enabling remote participation.

Steve correctly emphasizes how even after we find all of the asteroids, we need to keep monitoring and tracking them to avoid losing things or missing potential impacts further into the future.

And thus asteroid scientists have job security.

#ACM2026

For the last presentation at #ACM2026.

QT Meg Schwamb @megschwamb

Steve Chesley giving an excellent overview of Progress in Planetary Defense: Discovery, Risk Assessment, and Response #ACM2026
https://bsky.app/profile/megschwamb.bsky.social/post/3mqbpfco7n224

The #Hayabusa2 team has demonstrated that they can do kinetic impactor deflection if they want to - the uncertainty region was considerably smaller than Torifune.

But this way, they got a lot more information and can send the spacecraft off to another asteroid again.

#ACM2026

The uncertainty region for #Hayabusa2 approaching #Torifune was about 300 m long. That combined with the asteroid's maximum radius to set the minimum safe flyby distance of 800 m. #ACM2026

The last session of #ACM2026 starts with Makoto Yoshikawa presenting the preliminary results of the #Hayabusa2 flyby of #Torifune on behalf of the mission team, who are still quite busy.

Quanzhi Ye has been searching through 20 years worth of STEREO solar monitor images, looking for any vulcanoids (hypothetical asteroids inside the orbit of Mercury, for those unaware).

So far, there appear to be none.

#ACM2026

A series of presentations at #ACM2026 have covered @VRubinObs discovering small asteroid before they flash harmlessly in the sky: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2603.05587 .

It will provide more notice than other surveys and find more objects in the southern hemisphere. But most will be over ocean.

#TeamRadar at #ACM2026:

Shape models of near-Earth asteroids Ganymed (led by Allison McGraw), 1990 UQ (led by Xavier Inosencioa), 1999 FN53 (led by Flavia Rommel), 1994 AW1 (led by Marin Ferrais), 3200 Phaethon (led by Sean Marshall), and 1998 JM8 (led by Marina Brozovic).

So good that @[email protected]'s collation work is the gift that keeps on giving - here in Man-to Hui's plenary on the asteroid-come continuum #acm2026

Hard to post on multiple platforms, but I am in Poland this week attending #ACM2026

As the number of known near-Earth objects increases; more of the fine structure of the population becomes significant.

So everyone at #ACM2026 awaits more data from @VRubinObs .

Mikael Granvik gave a good overview of the near-Earth and main-belt asteroid populations for #ACM2026.

Something I had not appreciated:

NEO population charts now neatly show the density drops near orbital periods that are multiples of 1 year.

Some is observing bias. Some is unstable resonances.

Singer: not a lot happened to Arrokoth's surface since formation. Asteroids also have a shallow slope (-3) crater size-frequency distribution. Examined 21 asteroids. No patterns seen so far for cause; intriguing... #acm2026

Porter: Finding a high contact-binary fraction (60% have best fit) in 7 TNOs seen in New Horizons high phase angle TNO observations. Contact binaries have retrograde pole preferences. Testable with Rubin, but nice implications for streaming instability #acm2026

Abbie Donaldson on a module for survey simulator Sorcha to model the discovery of comets with activity in LSST. Median close to a year between first observation and comet discovery. But a good handful Come Intercepter could reach #acm2026

Abbie Donaldson is updating predictions for @VRubinObs finding targets for Comet Interceptor; using the Sorcha survey simulator (@astronomerritt et al. 2025).

Expect multiple targets, found at a mean of 10 au out. Final statistics are pending. #ACM2026

Namrah Habib very clearly explaining the calibration process for the instruments that measure temperature & composition of Comet Interceptor's target #acm2026

Kueppers: Come Interceptor on track for meeting launch readiness mid-2028. Has 'upgrade to business class', gets a launch now independent of Ariel, anticipated Ariane 6.4 rideshare late 2028/early 2029 #acm2026

Michael Küppers updated #ACM2026 on the status of Comet Interceptor.

On schedule for launch in late 2028 / early 2029 and waiting for up to 5 years after that for a reachable long-period comet (or interstellar object) to be found.

Tachibana with an overview of the wealth of results on the 5 g of sample returned from Ryugu. Spectacular detailed mineralogy, suggestive of Ryugu's formation in <70K and migration inward in first 2-5 Myr while gas-rich disk still present #acm2026

Huan Xie with an overview of the Tianwen-2 design goals and challenges in travel to a small 30 m asteroid. A lot of work (pose estimation, site selection through genetic algorithms) that overlaps with computer science. #acm2026

Suggestive plot from @[email protected] of bias in LSST commissioning astrometry of asteroids found 2000-2020. Lack of S. Hemisphere astrometry really starting to bite in the archive? #acm2026

And we're off at #acm2026. First plenary from Mario Juric on the just-started LSST; nice asteroid results from the initial engineering data.

Torifune!! It looks like another Itokawa!

As JB says, it’s a great time for asteroid studies, and hopefully we’ll hear a lot more over the course of the #ACM2026 meeting!

RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:vb4kw7d26aomgimauersp7ge/post/3mpxm7mulps2d

The first question at #ACM2026 is about how astronomical surveys are dealing with there being so many satellites in the way.

Answer:

Currently, software effectively subtracts them. But it does take work.

Current asteroid discovery statistic for @vrubinobs.bsky.social, per Mario Jurić:

35,000 new asteroids found so far.

And that will increase steadily as the survey phases up.

#ACM2026

What an exciting morning! Woke up to news of an exciting England win 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 (not to mention 🇳🇴!), and now bombarded by pictures of 2 (two!) new asteroids 🥔 (congrats Hayabusa2 🇯🇵 and Tianwen-2 🇨🇳), + the #ACM2026 meeting in 🇵🇱!
Can't help feeling a bit of FOMO for all of them though 😅

Starting the game of can I spot any planetary scientists/planetary astronomers on my flights to Poznań #ACM2026