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Found 99 results for asteroid

Could we put out the sun with a sun-sized orb of water?

18 July 2023

What would happen if we pushed a sun-sized ball of water into our star? The Dead Planets Society podcast dives into the possibilities

Absolutely enormous asteroid belt discovered around a nearby star

8 May 2023

Astronomers used the James Webb Space Telescope to spot strange asteroid belts around the nearby star Fomalhaut, along with evidence for at least three planets

Samples from asteroid Ryugu contain one of the building blocks of RNA

21 March 2023

The Hayabusa 2 spacecraft brought back samples from Ryugu in 2020, and an analysis of a tiny portion of those samples has revealed key ingredients for life

The evidence was found in a group of sedimentary and volcanic rocks in western Australia

Earliest evidence of a meteorite hitting Earth found in Australia

15 March 2023

Tiny pieces of stone found in a rock formation in Western Australia may be the oldest evidence of a meteorite impact on Earth, dating back nearly 3.5 billion years

Asteroid moonlet Dimorphos as seen by the DART spacecraft 11 seconds before impact. DART?s onboard DRACO imager captured this image from a distance of 42 miles (68 kilometers). This image was the last to contain all of Dimorphos in the field of view. Dimorphos is roughly 525 feet (160 meters) in length. Dimorphos? north is toward the top of the image. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins APL

What we learned from NASA's asteroid-smashing DART mission

1 March 2023

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, and the huge plume of rubble from the collision more than tripled the momentum transferred from the spacecraft to the asteroid

Several dust rings are illustrated circling the Sun. In line with these rings' position around the Sun are the planets Mercury, Venus, and Earth.

Weird dust ring orbits the sun alongside Mercury and we don't know why

8 February 2023

Very little debris should be able to survive for long in the area near Mercury, but the innermost planet seems to orbit the sun alongside a ring of dust that researchers can’t explain

LARGE REGIONS OF ROCK AND METAL: PSYCHE ASTEROID ILLUSTRATION This illustration depicts the 140-mile-wide (226-kilometer-wide) asteroid Psyche, which lies in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Psyche is the focal point of NASA?s mission of the same name. The Psyche spacecraft is set to launch in August 2022 and arrive at the asteroid in 2026, where it will orbit for 21 months and investigate its composition. Based on data obtained from Earth, scientists believe Psyche is a mixture of metal and rock. The rock and metal may be in large provinces, or areas, on the asteroid, as illustrated in this rendering. Observing and measuring how the metal and rock are mixed will help scientists determine how Psyche formed. Exploring the asteroid could also give valuable insight into how our own planet and others formed. The Psyche team will use a magnetometer to measure the asteroid?s magnetic field. A multispectral imager will capture images of the surface, as well as data about Psyche?s composition and topography. Spectrometers will analyze the neutrons and gamma rays coming from the surface to reveal the elements that make up the asteroid itself. The illustration was created by Peter Rubin. View or download the full resolution versions from NASA?s Photojournal Date Added: 03-29-2021 Credit: Peter Rubin

Spacecraft are heading to a metal asteroid and Jupiter's moons in 2023

28 December 2022

The JUICE and Psyche mission are set to blast off in 2023, with the aim of studying Jupiter's largest moons and a possible iron core of a planet in the hopes of understanding how worlds become habitable

ASI?s LICIACube satellite acquired this image just before its closest approach to the Dimorphos asteroid, after the Double Asteroid Redirect Test, or DART mission, purposefully made impact on Sep. 26, 2022. Didymos, Dimorphos, and the plume coming off of Dimorphos after DART impact are clearly visible. Credits: ASI/NASA

NASA's asteroid redirection spacecraft was a smashing success in 2022

14 December 2022

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test aimed to change the orbit of the space rock Dimorphos, and it did so perfectly

Original Caption Released with Image: Near the Viking 1 Lander on the Chryse Plains of Mars, 'Big Joe' stands a silent vigil. This large, often-photographed dark rock has a topping of reddish fine-grained silt that spills down its sides. It is about 2 meters (6.6 feet) long and lies about 8 meters (26 feet) from the spacecraft. The rough texture of the sides shows it to be coarse grained. Big Joe appears to be part of a field of large blocks that has a roughly circular alignment and which may be part of the rim of an ancient degraded crater. Some of the other blocks of the field can be seen to the left, extending out toward the horizon, perhaps 1.5 kilometers (1 mile) away. Drifts of fine-grained material cover the surface to the right and left of Big Joe. The part of the Lander that is visible in the lower left is the cover of the nuclear power supply. Image Credit: NASA/JPL

Ancient megatsunami on Mars traced to the crater where it began

1 December 2022

Before Mars dried up, an asteroid slammed into one of its oceans and caused a colossal megatsunami, and now researchers have found the crater where it hit

NASA’s flagship Artemis I mission has flown past the moon

21 November 2022

After blasting off on the enormous Space Launch System rocket, NASA's Orion capsule has flown within 130 kilometres of the lunar surface as it prepares to enter orbit