The study of active asteroids is a relatively new field of solar system science, focusing on objects that have asteroid-like orbits but look more like comets, with visual characteristics such as tails.

Because finding an active asteroid is such a rare event, fewer than 30 of these solar system bodies have been found since 1949, so there is still much for scientists to learn about them. Roughly only one out of 10,000 asteroids are classified as active asteroids, so an enormous number of observations will be needed over the span of many years to yield a larger sample for study.

Through funding from a National Science Foundation (NSF) Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) award in 2018, doctoral student Colin Orion Chandler in Northern Arizona University's Department of Astronomy and Planetary Science just launched an ambitious new project, Active Asteroids, which is designed to engage volunteers in the search for more of these enigmatic objects.

One consequence of the coronavirus pandemic is showing up in an unlikely place: the space industry.

A summer surge in COVID-19 patients is diverting liquid oxygen from rocket launch pads to hospitals, leading NASA to announce Friday it will delay the September launch of its next earth-surveillance satellite by a week.

Oxygen chilled to its liquid form at minus 300 Fahrenheit is a crucial propellant for launch firms from SpaceX to ULA to Virgin Orbit. Now the industry is anticipating launch delays as patients on ventilators take precedence in the commodity gas supply chain.

"People come first," said Richard Craig, vice president of technical and regulatory affairs for the Compressed Gas Association, an industry trade group.

While oxygen supplies have grown tighter nationwide due to medical use of oxygen, the need is most acute in Florida where a surge in COVID infections have filled hospitals.

Some Florida cities, including Orlando and Tampa, have imposed water-use restrictions because some water-treatment plants use oxygen in the sanitizing process.

Labor shortages among commercial truck drivers, which must have specialized training to transport some gasses such as oxygen, have also compounded the supply bottlenecks, Craig said.