This week, NASA’s Goldstone radar is tracking a large asteroid as it passes by Earth, and obtaining unusually clear images of the tumbling space rock.
“There is no danger of a collision with Earth,” says Lance Benner of NASA’s Near Earth Object Program. “At closest approach on Dec. 12th, asteroid 4179 Toutatis was 7 million km away or 18 times … Read the rest of this article
Solar systems with life-bearing planets may be rare if they are dependent on the presence of asteroid belts of just the right mass, according to a study by Rebecca Martin, a NASA Sagan Fellow from the University of Colorado in Boulder, and astronomer Mario Livio of the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md.
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This illustration shows three possible scenarios …
Scientists using data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, have uncovered new clues in the ongoing mystery of the Jovian Trojans — asteroids that orbit the sun on the same path as Jupiter. Like racehorses, the asteroids travel in packs, with one group leading the way in front of the gas giant, and a second group trailing behind.… Read the rest of this article
A potentially hazardous asteroid once found but then lost has been rediscovered and its orbit confirmed by a determined amateur astronomer working with ESA’s space hazards programme. The half-kilometre object will not threaten Earth anytime soon.
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Animation of asteroid 2008SE85, moving between the stars. The images were tracked on the asteroid, thus the stars appear as small trails. Credits: ESA/E. …
Planetary Resources are looking for passionate college students for paid co-op positions to help them mine asteroids this coming spring and summer…
If you love space and want to contribute directly to the development of the next generation of space exploration technologies, they want to hear from you (or from anyone you know that you think would be interested).
Surprisingly, most amateur astronomers have never seen as asteroid. But this week Asteroid 2 Pallas, the second one discovered, and the second biggest, will make a very close pass to the mag. 3.5 star Iota Ceti (also sometimes known as Deneb Kaitos Shemali, or Deneb Kaitos Al Shamaliyy) on 29 September. Pallas will be magnitude 8.3, so almost 5 … Read the rest of this article
NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has revealed the giant asteroid Vesta has its own version of ring around the collar. Two new papers, based on observations from the low-altitude mapping orbit of the Dawn mission, show volatile, or easily evaporated, materials have colored Vesta’s surface in a broad swath around its equator.
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This perspective view of Marcia crater on the giant asteroid …
NASA’s Dawn mission is releasing two parting views of the giant asteroid Vesta, using images that were among the last taken by the spacecraft as it departed its companion for the last year.
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As NASA’s Dawn spacecraft takes off for its next destination, this mosaic synthesizes some of the best views the spacecraft had of the giant asteroid Vesta. Dawn …
Students worldwide have an opportunity to name an asteroid from which an upcoming NASA mission will return the first samples to Earth.
Scheduled to launch in 2016, the mission is called the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx). Samples returned from the primitive surface of the near-Earth asteroid currently called (101955) 1999 RQ36 could hold clues to the origin … Read the rest of this article
A simulated mission to an asteroid is under way at NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The Research and Technology Studies (RATS) test, a 10-day asteroid exploration simulation in Johnson’s Space Vehicle Mockup Facility, kicked off this week. As NASA makes plans to send humans to asteroids by 2025, RATS and other mission simulations provide the agency with a way … Read the rest of this article
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