A new video from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft takes us on a flyover journey above the surface of the giant asteroid Vesta.
This image obtained by the framing camera on NASA’s Dawn spacecraft shows the south pole of the giant asteroid Vesta. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA
The data obtained by Dawn’s framing camera, used to produce the visualizations, will help scientists determine … Read the rest of this article
In a few years a NASA spacecraft will seek the building blocks of life in a shovelful of asteroid dirt. The OSIRIS-REx1 spacecraft, targeted for launch in September 2016, will intercept asteroid 1999 RQ36, orbit it for a year, and then reach out a robotic arm to touch its surface.
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OSIRIS-Rex will visit asteroid 1999 RQ36 and return with samples …
The Dawn spacecraft has completed a graceful spiral into the first of four planned science orbits during the spacecraft’s yearlong visit to Vesta. The spacecraft started taking detailed observations on Aug. 11 at 9:13 a.m. PDT (12:13 a.m. EDT), which marks the official start of the first science-collecting orbit phase at Vesta, also known as the survey orbit.
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3D Image …
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft on Saturday became the first probe ever to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Dawn will study the asteroid, named Vesta, for a year before departing for a second destination, a dwarf planet named Ceres, in July 2012. Observations will provide unprecedented data to help scientists understand the earliest … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft will begin a prolonged encounter with the asteroid Vesta today (July 15), making the mission the first to enter orbit around a main-belt asteroid.
The main asteroid belt lies between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Dawn will study Vesta for one year, and observations will help scientists understand the earliest chapter of our solar system’s history.… Read the rest of this article
Newly-discovered asteroid 2011 MD will pass only 12,000 kilometers (7,500 miles) above Earth’s surface on Monday, June 27th at about 9:30AM EDT. NASA analysts say there is no chance the space rock will strike Earth. Nevertheless, the encounter is so close that Earth’s gravity will sharply perturb the asteroid’s trajectory.
The asteroid was discovered by the LINEAR near-Earth object discovery … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has obtained its first image of the giant asteroid Vesta, which will help fine-tune navigation during its approach. Dawn is expected to achieve orbit around Vesta on July 16, when the asteroid is about 188 million kilometers (117 million miles) from Earth.
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This image shows the first, unprocessed image obtained by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft of the giant …
Newly-discovered asteroid 2011 GP59 is flying past Earth today, April 15th, not far beyond the orbit of the Moon (1.4 LD). There’s no danger of a collision, but the 50-meter space rock is remarkable: It is elongated and spinning once every 7.5 minutes. This causes the asteroid to flash like a strobe light. A video taken by Joe Pollock of … Read the rest of this article
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The Sun Now (H-Alpha light)
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