Tag: asteroids
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How our golden age of asteroid exploration could reveal life’s origins
[ad_1] ON THE morning of 24 September 2023, Dante Lauretta woke up early, his pulse racing. For 20 years, he had been working on a NASA space mission that aimed to scoop up a sample of an asteroid and return it to Earth. Now, it was time for the sample capsule to land. If anything…
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Asteroid sampled by NASA may once have been part of an ocean world
[ad_1] A sample from the asteroid Bennu, brought back by the OSIRIS-REx mission, contains hints that it was once part of a planetesimal with conditions favourable for life to emerge [ad_2] Source link
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Pancake-like comets may be made by whirling clouds of pebbles
[ad_1] Comet Arrokoth is a small Kuiper Belt object made of of two parts with pancake-like shapes NASA Spinning clouds of pebbles may lead to the formation of oddly flattened objects in the solar system, including comets and asteroids. In 2019, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past an icy, comet-like object beyond Pluto called Arrokoth.…
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In 2024 the Hera mission will revisit the asteroid punched by NASA
[ad_1] Hera, with CubeSats, will soon be heading to the Dimorphos asteroid ESA/Science Office The European Space Agency (ESA) is sending a mission to investigate what happened to an asteroid that NASA punched in 2022. The Hera mission, launching in October, will head to asteroid Dimorphos, which NASA hit with its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART)…
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Newfound moon around asteroid Dinkinesh is actually two touching rocks
[ad_1] The asteroid Dinkinesh and its binary contact satellite NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL The asteroid Dinkinesh’s newfound moon is actually a contact binary – two objects lightly touching at their ends. This is the first time such a binary has been found orbiting another asteroid. Dinkinesh was the first rock visited by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, which…
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Can we smash together all of the asteroids to build a new planet?
[ad_1] Let’s be honest: the asteroid belt is a bit of a mess. It is full of big rocks hurtling around at high speeds, occasionally getting tossed towards assorted planets, and generally causing a ruckus. On this episode of Dead Planets Society, our hosts Chelsea Whyte and Leah Crane have decided to embark on a…
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Lucy spacecraft found another asteroid behind the asteroid Dinkinesh
[ad_1] The asteroid Dinkinesh and its smaller orbiting asteroid NASA/Goddard/SwRI/Johns Hopkins APL/NOAO NASA’s Lucy spacecraft has flown past its first asteroid, and found a second one at the same time. Lucy flew past the small asteroid Dinkinesh on 1 November, and the images it has sent back to Earth have revealed that Dinkinesh has an…
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NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is hurtling towards the tiny asteroid Dinkinesh
[ad_1] NASA’s Lucy mission is heading to two swarms of asteroids trapped in Jupiter’s orbit NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Lab NASA’s Lucy spacecraft is about to visit its first asteroid. On 1 November, it will pass within 430 kilometres of the small asteroid Dinkinesh, testing its instruments and taking a few scientific…