I'm interested in the dynamics of the Solar System, particularly its smaller bodies, asteroids, comets and meteoroid streams. I'm also interested in the dynamics of planets around other stars, and in celestial mechanics in general.

I'm always looking for new graduate students, so if you're interested in doing a Master's or PhD in one of these fields, please contact me (pwiegert[at]uwo.ca )

Samples of My Research

Asteroid searches

Asteroid and comet studies

Telescopic studies of asteroids and comets continue to reveal new information about the nature of our Solar System. At the left is an animation of three images of a portion of the sky, spaced about an hour apart. These are the discovery images of a small main-belt asteroid discovered by my group. The images were taken with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) on Mauna Kea as part of the CFHT Legacy Survey. The asteroid, indicated by the red arrow, was caught passing in front of dramatic spiral galaxy IRAS 13402-1111, an ensemble of hundreds of millions of stars, all approximately 1 000 000 000 000 times further from us than the asteroid itself. This asteroid was part of a study of hundreds of asteroids, many of them discovered during our project, to investigate the size distribution and colours of small main belt asteroids. Click on the image for a larger view and more information.
Hypothetical Earth Retrograde Satellite

Retrograde Satellites (Quasi-satellites)

What goes round and round a planet but isn't (technically) a moon? There is a class of orbits called "retrograde satellites" or "quasisatellites" which are in orbit around the Sun but coincidentally also seem to go around a planet. You can find more about these strange and only recently discovered objects here.
View of Cruithne's orbit

The Earth companion asteroid 3753 Cruithne

I have been involved in an a study, in collaboration with Kim Innanen (York) and Seppo Mikkola (Turku), of near-Earth asteroids. During this research, we discovered that the Earth has a companion asteroid. If you would like to know more about asteroid 3753 Cruithne, you can visit its home page here.
2002 AA29 in quasi-satellite mode

Asteroid 2002 AA29: Quasi-satellite to horseshoe and back again....

Most near-Earth asteroids have no consistent dynamical connection to our planet. However, those that go around the Sun in precisely the same amount of time as our planet fall into 1:1 mean-motion resonance with our planet (which just means that both go around the Sun once in the same average (mean) amount of time). These rare bodies are called Earth coorbital or companion asteroids; they in some sense share the Earth's orbit with it. With a highly circular orbit that is the most Earth-like seen so far, and able to transit between two distinct types of resonant motion, is the near-Earth asteroid designated 2002 AA29.
Earth Lagrange point asteroids

Earth Lagrange point asteroids (Earth Trojan asteroids)

If you put an asteroid exactly on the same orbit as the Earth, what would happen? Would it stay on the orbit? Drift away? Or crash into our planet? The answer depends on exactly where you place the asteroid. There are five points on or near the Earth's orbit, known as the Lagrange points, where an asteroid will remain stationary with respect to the Earth. Click here for more information.
OMI

The One Metre Initiative

OMI --- The One Metre Initiative -- is a state-of-the-art telescope design for a wide-field autonomous imaging facility. Once constructed it will become the most powerful telescope on Canadian soil. The OMI is slated to be located in North Frontenac Township, which is part of the Madawaska Highlands and has the darkest night skies in southern Canada.Click here for more information.

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