A recent paper, The 2019 Taurid resonant swarm: prospects for ground detection of small NEOs, published on arXiv.org,  by PhD candidate David Clark and Astronomy professors Paul Wiegert and Peter Brown, has been accepted for publication in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Their work is also making headlines here at home, having been featured recently in both the CBC and Western News.

Abstract:

In June 2019 the Earth will approach within 5° mean anomaly of the centre of the Taurid resonant swarm, its closest post-perihelion encounter with Earth since 1975. This will be the best viewing geometry to detect and place limits on the number of NEOs proposed to reside at the swarm centre until the early 2030s. We present an analysis of the optimal times and pointing locations to image NEOs associated with the swarm

Last week a group of graduate students from the Centre for Planetary and Space Exploration (CPSX), including Astronomy PhD candidate Mohammed Chamma, received some unexpected and very exciting news.

The High Altitude Balloon (HAB) they sent into the atmosphere a year ago, and subsequently lost contact with on its descent,  was found by a farmer and finally returned. Amazingly the payload survived its year in the wild and was salvagable. The students have begun analyzing their once-lost data and are planning their next launch scheduled for August.

The discovery has been featured on CTV news as well as in the Western News.