Who we are

The Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico was the world's most powerful and sensitive planetary radar radar facility for over 50 years. Arecibo worked with NASA funding on the the physical and dynamical characterization of Solar System objects: planets, moons, asteroids in the main belt, and near-Earth objects that could pose a thread to Earth.

The Arecibo legacy database includes data for hundreds of asteroids, but the exploitation of these data requires unique skills. With this workshop, in the era of the open science, the extended Arecibo team aims to provide training to the planetary sciences community, to enhance our knowledge about these bodies.

Planetary radar research is done as international collaborations between many organizations. The list below presents several research groups who will participate in this workshop:

• Florida Space Institute scientists used to work at Arecibo, with lots of experience in radar observations and the usage of the SHAPE modeling software.

• The University of Oviedo, Instituto de Ciencias y Tecnologías Espaciales de Asturias (ICTEA) will be hosting the in-person component of the workshop. With former Arecibo scientists leading and a group of graduate students interested in developing shape models. 

• The JPL/Caltech Solar System group's scientists have worked with Arecibo and Goldstone radar data, and have developed methods and software for the calculation of orbits based on radar observations.

• The SwRI team includes scientists who have used radar data to create shape models with Arecibo radar data.

• The SETI instructors have experience in the use of the SHAPE software to be taught during this workshop.

• The Univ. of Helsinki group includes the former PI of the Planetary Radar group at Arecibo, who also has worked with the SHAPE software used in this workshop.

• The Univ. of Edinburgh group: has produced publications on the use of the SHAPE software for specific asteroids and developed tools for improving the shape modeling efforts.

• The Polish group has experience developing shape models from optical observations (without radar), some of which have then been used with SHAPE for asteroids that were later observed by radar.