'Star Trek' star Tim Russ helps detect asteroid for NASA's upcoming mission

Tim Russ, who played Lieutenant Commander Tuvok on the sci-fi show "Star Trek: Voyager" is going back to his space roots. On his latest mission, he's helping detect asteroids for NASA.

Russ and five other citizen astronomers contributed to the detection of Patroclus, an asteroid orbiting Jupiter. 

The purpose of detecting the asteroid is to serve NASA's upcoming mission in October where it will launch a probe named Lucy into space, according to Russ. NASA said in a statement posted to their website that Lucy will complete a 12-year journey to eight different asteroids: a Main Belt and seven Trojans.

"These Trojan asteroids were captured in Jupiter's orbit, probably from farther out in the solar system, so they're more rare and more pristine in terms of what information they might have in their chemical makeup," Russ tells USA TODAY.

According to NASA, the Trojan asteroids are "stabilized by the Sun and its largest planet in a gravitational balancing act. …These primitive bodies hold vital clues to deciphering the history of the solar system, and perhaps even the origins of organic material on Earth."

Russ helped detect Patroclus using a Unistellar eVscope and eQuinox telescope, a computerized telescope with a built-in GPS that connects to any cellphone.

"It will simply find a starfield on its own and it will figure out where it is. You just punch in the object you want to go see," Russ says.

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"After you punch that in, it will move to that object on its own," he says. "And it'll hold it and track it. Then it'll layer the images for that object so the object becomes much bigger in size." Russ explains layering the images will also show "much more detail" than the naked eye could ever see with the use of a telescope. 

The "Star Trek" actor says you have to have the specific coordinates of the asteroid or comet so the telescope will know where to go in the sky.

Russ says that Unistellar, a brand of the telescope, in partnership with not-for-profit research organization SETI Institute, whose mission is to explore the origins and nature of life in the universe, has a network of citizen astronomers who regularly contribute space observations. 

He's a part of that network and he was one of the many to receive an email from Unistellar, he says, asking if he was willing to volunteer to help detect the Patroclus asteroid. 

"Whoever's available, whoever has clear skies coming, and has the time will go out and do it," Russ says. "I was available, I had clear skies and I had a clear view of the object because there are only certain people that will be able to see it based on where they are." 

In Patroculus' case, the asteroid shadow is very small and is going across the Earth in a straight line, and if a person is not in the right path, they won't catch a glimpse.

For Russ, working with NASA after his "Star Trek" role was coincidental. The actor has been pursuing astronomy as a hobby for nearly 35 years. 

 "The two paths kind of crossed each other because of the show … the fact that I'm actually doing it – it's serendipity but it starts from the inside out. A person must have an interest in the subject," Russ says. 

Initially, most of Russ' work in astronomy consisted of observation. He has been a part of the Los Angeles Astronomical Society for 29 years, and he would help with outreach programs for the public at the Griffith Observatory.

"When it was either a close approach of Mars or a special comet or partial eclipse or a lunar eclipse, we would go up and bring our telescopes up there and let the general public come in and view and give them information about what we're doing," Russ says. "We would do events when something special was happening, and we would do a podcast right there that was live and sit in and talk about what we were doing that night."

He says that contributing to NASA's mission is important because understanding where we come from, what our origins are and the fact that we are a few intelligent species in this galaxy is special. 

"The scope and scale of the universe are incalculable and to be able to observe that inside an eyepiece to me is just absolutely phenomenal," Russ says.