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Found 8 results for asteroid
Michele Bannister

The inside story on 'Oumuamua and other interstellar worlds

2 December 2019

In 2017, a mysterious asteroid from a different solar system passed near Earth. Astrophysicist Michele Bannister has the inside story on ’Oumuamua


SPHERE image of Hygiea

Surprisingly round asteroid may actually be the smallest dwarf planet

28 October 2019

The best ever image of the asteroid Hygiea has revealed its shape for the first time and it looks as if it is round enough to be a tiny dwarf planet like Pluto


'Oumuamua

Earth may be partly made of rocks from elsewhere in the galaxy

14 March 2019

We’ve only seen one interstellar object, a rock called ‘Oumuamua that passed by in 2017, but they may be crucial to speeding up the planet-building process


An artist's impression of Psyche

NASA’s deep-space mission to a $10 quintillion all-metal world

15 August 2018

The unique metal asteroid Psyche may be a space miner's fantasy – but there are better reasons to want to visit it, says mission leader Lindy Elkins-Tanton


A 300-kilometre space rock has vanished since we saw it in 1995

A 300-kilometre space rock has vanished since we saw it in 1995

25 October 2017

Don’t feel so bad for losing your keys. Astronomers somehow lost a huge space rock first seen 22 years ago – and it’s far from the first cosmic object to go missing


Craters on Ceres

The mysterious bright spots on Ceres may have a common origin

2 October 2017

The dwarf planet Ceres is dappled with mysterious bright splotches. Their make-up varies with location, but they may all come from the same process


Hottest place

The hottest place ever recorded on Earth's surface was 2370°C

13 September 2017

When a rock from space crashed to ground 38 million years ago, it briefly heated the impact zone to 2370°C, the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth’s crust


Jupiter

How Jupiter split the asteroid belt in two shows its great age

12 June 2017

An analysis of meteorites shows that Jupiter divided the rocks of the asteroid belt into two families within the first million years of the solar system


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