© 2018 Peter Vereš

Last updated: Feb 19, 2023

Research activities

Since my graduate years, I have been interested in minor bodies of the Solar system - asteroids, meteors and comets. Within my master and PhD thesis, I studied the physical properties, orbital parameters and size-frequency distribution of Near-Earth asteroids (NEOs) and the connection between NEOs and meteoroids. I was involved in development and operation of AMOS video meteor camera in its early stages and worked as an observer at AGO Observatory in Slovakia for two years, doing photometric and astrometric observations of asteroids and comets.


As a postdoc in Hawaii, I joined the Pan-STARRS team when they started the full operation in 2011. As a member of daily MOPS crew, I co-discovered hundreds of asteroids and tens of comets with Pan-STARRS, performed survey simulations and implemented trail fitting algorithm for astrometric improvement of fast moving asteroids.


In 2015, I joined Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Center for NEO Studies and worked on high-fidelity simulations for LSST, as a future discovery machine of small Solar system bodies. My work included improvement of orbital uncertainties and measurement errors of asteroid and comet astrometry that led to better estimation of orbital parameters.


In 2017, I joined the Minor Planet Center, operating under SAO, under the auspices of Division F of IAU and funded by NASA.The MPC is responsible for the designation of minor bodies in the solar system: minor planets; comets; and natural satellites. The MPC is also responsible for the efficient collection, computation, checking and dissemination of astrometric observations and orbits for minor planets and comets.


© 2020 Peter Vereš

Interests:


- Population models of asteroids and comets

- Physical properties of asteroids - 250,000 H,G,G12 values derived from Pan-STARRS data

- Dynamical evolution of orbits

- Discovery and follow-up of NEOs

- Astrometric uncertainties for large asteroid surveys - Paper

- All-sky telescopic surveys and survey efficiency for NEO discovery - NASA LSST study

- LSST Solar System Science Collaboration

- Earth-impacting asteroids - with Pan-STARRS and parallax effect on orbit determination

- Physical and dynamical properties of meteoroids

- Extrasolar planets: transiting exoplanets

- Commercial utilization of space resources

- Space policy regarding asteroid mining




Publications

Peer-reviewed: ADS library

2023

  • Veres, P., Cloete, R., Weryk, R., Loeb, A., Payne, M.J.:2023. Improvement of Digest2 NEO Classification Code-utilizing the Astrometry Data Exchange Standard. PASP 135, Issue 1052, id. 104505.
  • Seligman, D. et al.: 2023. Dark Comets? Unexpectedly Large Nongravitational Accelerations on a Sample of Small Asteroids. The Planetary Science Journal, Volume 4, Issue 2, id.35, 16 pp.
  • Bufanda, E. et al.: 2023. TNO or Comet? The Search for Activity and Characterization of Distant Object 418993 (2009 MS9). The Planetary Science Journal, Volume 4, Issue 1, id.2, 18 pp.
  • 2022

  • Reddy, W. et al.: 2022. Apophis Planetary Defense Campaign. The Planetary Science Journal, Volume 3, Issue 5, id.123, 16 pp
  • Wainscoat, R., Weryk, R., Chesley, S., Vereš, P., Micheli, M.: 2021. Regions of slow apparent motion of close approaching asteroids: The case of 2019 OK. Icarus 373.M
  • 2020

  • Baláž, M., Tóth, J., Vereš, P.: 2020. ASMODEUS Meteor Simulation Tool. Planetary and Space Science 190, 1-9.
  • Pan, M., Payne, M.J., Vereš, P., Holman, M.J.: 2020. Large-scale Homogeneous Orbit Fitting with the Minor Planet Center Databases using OrbFit. RNAAS, Vol 4, Number 3.
  • 2019

  • Pravec, P. et al.: 2019. Asteroid pairs: a complex picture. Icarus 333, 429-463.
  • Keys, S. et al.: 2019. The digest2 NEO classification code. PASP 131, 1000.
  • 2018

  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2018. Unconfirmed Near-Earth Objects. Astronomical Journal 156, Number 1.
  • Holman, M.J. et al. A.: 2018. A dwarf planet class object in the 21:5 resonance with Neptune. Astronomical Journal Letters, 855, No 1.
  • Cibulková, H. et al.: 2018. Distribution of shape elongations of main belt asteroids derived from Pan-STARRS1 photometry. Astronomy & Astrophysics, 611, A86.

  • 2017

  • Vereš, P. et al..: 2017. Statistical Analysis of the Astrometric Errors for the Most Productive Asteroid Surveys. Icarus 249, 139.
  • Vereš, P. and Chesley, S.: 2017. High Fidelity Near-Earth Object Survey Simulations. Astronomical Journal 154, 18 pp.
  • Vereš, P. and Chesley, S.: 2017. Near-Earth Object Orbit Linking with the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope. Astronomical Journal 154, 19 pp.
  • Moreno, F., et al.: 2017. The splitting of double-component active asteroid P/2016 J1 (PANSTARRS). Astrophysical Journal Letters 837, L3, 6 pp.
  • Engelhardt, T. et al.: 2017. An Observational Upper Limit on the Interstellar Number Density of Asteroids and Comets. Astronomical Journal 153, 11 pp.
  • Schunová-Lilly, E., et al.: 2017. The size-frequency distribution of H>18 NEOs and AMR targets detected by Pan-STARRS1. Icarus 284, 114

  • 2016

  • McNeill, A. et al.: 2015, Brightness variation distributions among main belt asteroids from sparse light curve sampling with Pan-STARRS 1. MNRAS 459, 2964.
  • Bannister, M.T., et al.: 2016. OSSOS: IV. Discovery of a dwar planet candidate in the 9:2 resonance with Neptune. Astrophysical Journal 152, Issue 6, article id. 212, 8 pp.

  • 2015

  • Denneau, L. et al..:2015. Observational constraints on the catastrophic disruption rate of small main melt asteroids. Icarus 245, 1
  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2015. Absolute magnitudes and slope parameters for 250,000 asteroids observed by Pan-STARRS PS1 – Preliminary results. Icarus 261, 34.
  • Tóth, J. et al.: 2015. All-sky Meteor Orbit System AMOS and preliminary analysis of three unusual meteor showers, Planetary and Space Science 118, 102.
  • Vaduvescu, O. et al.: 2015. First EURONEAR NEA discoveries from La Palma using the INT. MNRAS 449, 1614
  • Tóth, J. et al.: 2015. The Košice meteorite fall: Recovery and strewn field. Meteoritics & Planetary Science, Volume 50, Issue 5, pp. 853-863

  • 2014

  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2014. The effect of parallax and cadence on asteroid impact probabilities and warning times. PASP 126, 433
  • Kohout, T.: 2014. Density, porosity and magnetic susceptibility of the Košice meteorite shower and homogeneity of its parent meteoroid. Planetary and Space Science 93, 96
  • Hsieh, H.H. et al.: 2014. Search for the return of activity in active asteroid 176P/LINEAR. The Astronomical Journal 174, 89

  • 2013

  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2014. Automatic Detection of Asteroids and Meteoroids – A Wide Field Survey. Proceedings of Meteoroids 2013 Conference, ed. Jopek T.J., Reitmeijer, F.J.M., Watanabe J., Williams I.P., A.M.University Press Poznan, Poland, 307
  • Denneau, L. et al.: 2013. The Pan-STARRS Moving Object Processing System. PASP 125, 357
  • Hsieh, H. et al.: 2013. Main-belt Comet P/2012 T1 (PANSTARRS). The Astrophysical Journal Letters, 771, 6

  • 2012

  • Hsieh, H.: 2012. Discovery of Main-belt Comet P/2006 VW139 by Pan-STARRS1. The Astrophysical Journal Letters 748, 7
  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2012. Improved Asteroid Astrometry and Photometry with Trail Fitting. PASP 124, 921

  • 2011

  • Tóth, J. et al.: 2011. All-sky video orbits of Lyrids 2009. Publ. Astron. Soc. Japan Vol. 63, 331

  • 2010

  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2010. Meteor showers of comet C/1917 F1 Mellish. MNRAS 412, 511.
  • Tóth, J. et al.: 2010. Tidal disruption of NEAs – a case of Příbram meteorite. MNRAS 415, 1527
  • Tóth, J. et al.: 2010. All-sky video orbits of Lyrids 2009. Publ. Astron. Soc. Japan 63, No. 2
  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2010. Analysis of the SonotaCo video meteor orbits. WGN- 38:2, 54

  • 2009

  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2009. Relative photometry of transiting exoplanet COROT-Exo-2b. Contributions of the Astronomical Observatory Skalnaté Pleso 39, 34
  • Kornoš, L. et al.: 2009. Release of meteoroids from asteroids by Earth's tides. Contributions of the Astronomical Observatory Skalnaté Pleso 39
  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2009. Detection of Earth-impacting asteroids with the next generation all-sky surveys, Icarus 203, 472

  • 2008

  • Vereš, P. et al.: 2008. Motion of a meteoroid released from and asteroid. Earth, Moon and planets 102, 59
  • Kornoš, L. et al.: 2008. Orbital evolution of Příbram and Neuschwanstein. Earth, Moon and planets 102, 47

  • 2006

  • . Vereš, P. et al.: 2006. Search for very close approaching NEAs. Contributions of the Astronomical Observatory Skalnaté Pleso 36, 171

  • Books, book chapters and standalone publications

  • Vereš, P. and Schmidt, N. Methods, Means and Governance of NEO Observation. In "Planetary Defense: Global Collaboration for Defending Earth from Asteroids and Comets", Edited by Nikola Schmidt, Springer, 2019, pp. 49-70. ISBN 978-3-030-01000-3
  • Vereš, P.. Technical Architecture to Deepen Our Solar System Awareness. In "Planetary Defense: Global Collaboration for Defending Earth from Asteroids and Comets", Edited by Nikola Schmidt, Springer, 2019, pp. 71-93. ISBN 978-3-030-01000-3
  • Vereš, P.. Vision of Perfect Observation Capabilities. In "Planetary Defense: Global Collaboration for Defending Earth from Asteroids and Comets", Edited by Nikola Schmidt, Springer, 2019, pp. 95-112. ISBN 978-3-030-01000-3. Springer LINK
  • Chesley, S.R. and Vereš, P. 2017. Projected Near-Earth Object Discovery Performance of the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope.JPL Publication 16-11. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.DOWNLOAD
  • Paľuš, P., Tóth, J., Ševčík, S., Masarik, S., Vereš, P. 2010. Dotyky s vesmírom. ISBN 9788022328869 (Slovak language).

  • Curriculum Vitae

    Employment history

    2017-curr. -- Astronomer; Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, Cambridge, MA, USA
    2015-2017 -- Caltech Postdoctoral Scholar; Jet Propulsion Laboratory/NASA, Pasadena, CA, USA
    2014-2015 -- Research scientist; Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
    2011-2014 -- Pan-STARRS MOPS Postdoctoral Fellow; Institute for Astronomy; University of Hawaii at Manoa, USA
    2010-2011 -- Research scientist; Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
    2008-2010 -- Observer, Modra observatory; Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
    2009-2009 -- IT technical support; QualityUnit, Bratislava, Slovakia
    © 2018 Peter Vereš

    Education

    2006-2010 --  Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia
    2001-2006 --  Master (Mgr) Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia

    Internships

    06/2009 -- Super Vatican Observatory Summer School, Sassone, Italy.
    02-08/2008 -- Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii, Honolulu, USA.
    06-07/2007 -- Vatican observatory summer school, Castel Gandolfo, Italy.
    12/2006 -- Kobe international school of planetary sciences 2006, Kobe, Japan

    Teaching

    2014 -- Extrasolar Planets
    2007 -- Introduction to Astronomy II (TA)
    2006 -- Physics 101 – Mechanics (TA)

    Membership

    International Astronomical Union
    American Geophysical Union
    Division for Planetary Sciences, AAS
    Slovak Space Policy Association

    Conferences

    05/2006 -- Meeting on asteroids and comets in Europe, Vienna, Austria  ABSTRACT
    07/2008 -- Asteroids, Comets, Meteors, Baltimore, MD, USA  ABSTRACT  ABSTRACT  ABSTRACT
    09/2008 -- IMO International Meteor Conference, Sachticky, Slovakia  ABSTRACT
    04/2009 -- First planetary defense conference, Granada, Spain   MEETING
    09/2009 -- European planetary science congress, Potsdam, Germany   ABSTRACT
    05/2010 -- Meteoroids, Breckenridge, CO, USA   MEETING
    05/2011 -- Planetary Defense Conference, Bucharest, Romania   MEETING
    05/2012 -- Asteroids, Comets and Meteors, Niigata, Japan   ABSTRACT  ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT  ABSTRACT
    10/2012 -- Division for Planetary Sciences Annual Meeting (DPS), Reno, NV, USA   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT ABSTRACT
    04/2013 -- Planetary Defense Conference, Flagstaff, USA   MEETING
    10/2013 -- Division for Planetary Sciences Annual Meeting (DPS), Denver, CO, USA  ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT
    07/2014 -- Asteroids, Comets and Meteors, Helsinki, Finland   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT
    08/2015 -- LSST Project Community Workshop, Bremerton, WA, USA   MEETING
    11/2015 -- Division for Planetary Sciences Annual Meeting (DPS), National Harbor, MD, USA   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT
    06/2016 -- LSST@Europe2, Belgrade, Serbia  PROGRAMME
    10/2016 -- Division for Planetary Sciences Annual Meeting (DPS), Pasadena, CA, USA   ABSTRACT   ABSTRACT
    10/2017 -- Division for Planetary Sciences Annual Meeting (DPS), Provo, UT, USA   ABSTRACT
    04/2018 -- Asteroid Science Intersections with In-Space Mine Engineering 2018, Luxemburg PROGRAM
    05/2018 -- Near-Earth Objects: Properties, Detection, Resources, Impacts and Defending Earth, Garching, Germany WEB
    04/2019 -- Planetary Defense Conference, College Park, MA, USA
    12/2022 -- EC-ESA Workshop on NEO, Darmstadt, Germany
    04/2023 -- Planetary Defense Conference, Vienna, Austria

    Reviewer

    Planetary and Space Science
    Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
    Astronomy and Astrophysics
    "US government agency" panel reviewer (undisclosed)
    VEGA grant reviewer for Slovak Department of Education

    Skills

    Computing: Unix, Linux, Windows, Mac OSX operating systems
    Programming: MySQL, PHP, Perl, Python, C++, IDL, Iraf, Bash, OriginLab, html, CMS-web site management
    Observing and Image processing : UH88, CFHT (Mauna Kea), Pan-STARRS1, Pan-STARRS2, LCGOT (Haleakala), DECam (Cerro Tololo)
    Moving Object Processig System (MOPS)

    Public outreach

    My public outreach activities mostly consist of request to media on current space-related topics. Either covering my own work or commenting on the most recent discoveries, the list of media appearances is rather long and incomplete. My contributiobs in my mother tongue (Slovak) are found here (click the image):

    In News:

    Interview with Peter Veres (SKAW)
    Look Up for A Brilliant Comet Now - Cosmic Fireworks at Play (Asiavillenews)
    Never-before-seen colossal comet on a trek toward the sun (Live Science)
    Ground based observation of Gaia satellite (ESA BLOG)
    Why the mega comet is fascinating so and not a threat to Earth (Mashable)
    A speeding object collided with Jupiter and blew up, cool space footage shows (Mashable)
    Wikipedia's top-cited scholarly articles by Nature (NATURE)
    We have lost track of more than 900 near-Earth asteroids. (New Scientist)
    Asteroids approach our planet almost daily. Collision is unlikely (Slovak Spectator)
    Headlines about a "concerning" asteroid that will skim Earth on Saturday are not giving us an accurate picture (newswise.com)
    This astronomer turns small Eastern European country into an asteroid-spotting powerhouse. (SPACE.COM)
    Military Memo Deepens Possible Interstellar Meteor Mystery. (New York Times)
    The amateur asteroid hunters giving NASA a run for its money. (360info.org)
    Mysterious Green Comet Nears Earth, Revealing Secrets of Time and Space. (Newsweek)
    Asteroid fly-by Thursday night will be watched by scientists around the world, Harvard astronomer says. (Boston Globe)
    Rare green comet which last neared Earth 50000 years ago reaches its closest point Wednesday night. (Boston Globe)
    'Comet of a decade' to whiz past Earth in likely first visit in 4.5 billion years. (Fox Weather)
    How to Watch the Spectacular Lyrid Meteor Shower. (Smithsonian Magazine)
    Viewing the Lyrids meteor shower could be a fun weekend activity (CNN)
    Lyrid Meteor Shower 2023: How to Watch the Shooting Stars (The Wall Street Journal)
    The asteroid hit by NASA seems to be moving strangely (Smithsonian Magazine)
    High-speed object just crashed into Jupiter, footage shows (Mashable)
    Objects worth quadrillions dollars. Will they start new gold rush? (TVN24) - in Polish

    Podcasts:

    Scientific Sense Podcast
    Every asteroid observation ever taken with Dr. Veres at Spacepod with Carrie Nugent

    On video:

    DART - A Successful Planetary Defense Mission, Science on Screen at Martha's Vineyard

    Public lectures:

    Slovak PRO - Slovak Astrophysicists in Boston (Public lecture)
    © 2018 Peter Vereš

    Main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. It is assumed that about 1 million asteroids larger than 1 km reside in Main asteroid belt.


    © 2018 Peter Vereš

    Video rendering (by Peter Veres) of a first discovered interstellar object 1I/'Oumuamua. It is probably the most elongated natural object ever observed, with the axial ratio of 1:6 - 1:10. Approximate size of the object is 230x35x35 meters. Discovered by Pan-STARRS1 on October 19, 2017.

    © 2018 Peter Vereš

    Asteroids with confirmed ring systems. Graphical rendering Left to right: 2060 Chiron, 10199 Chariklo, 136108 Haumea.

    >

    Meteors

    Meteoroids are tiny fragments of comets and asteroids. When they enter the Earth's atmosphere, they burn as meteors and disintegrate 80-120 km above the surface. When we observe the meteor trail by at least two stations separated by tens of kilometers, we can compute the 3D atmospheric trajectory and derive the heliocentric orbit. Helicentric orbits lead to the parent body that released the meteoroids or can serve as an indicator of already disintegrated body. Additionaly, we can obtain a spectrum of a meteor and study the volatiles in the ionizied trail.

    The global network for all-sky video meteor surveillance - AMOS Video Meteor Network, PI: Juraj Toth (Comenius University, Slovakia)



    Composite image of Perseid meteor shower on Aug 12/13, 2013 by AMOS.

    Live feed from all-sky video meteor system (AMOS)


    Contact me


    Peter Vereš
    Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
    60 Garden St, MS-15
    Cambridge, MA
    02138
    USA

    Phone: +1-617-496-7610
    Office: B-313
    Email:
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