Jay TateAn international team of asteroid and comet
experts, including two from the University of Hawaii, agrees on a natural
origin for our first interstellar visitor. On October 19, 2017, the Panoramic
Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 (Pan-STARRS1) telescope, located
at the University of Hawaii’s Haleakala Observatory, discovered the first known
interstellar object to pass through our solar system.
…
Jay TateESA’s Hera mission for planetary defence, being
designed to survey the smallest asteroid ever explored, is really three
spacecraft in one. The main mothership will carry two briefcase-sized CubeSats,
which will touch down on the target body. A French team has been investigating
what might happen at that initial instant of alien contact.
…
Jay TateTwenty-five years ago, humanity first witnessed a
collision between a comet and a planet. From July 16 to 22, 1994, enormous
pieces of the comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9), discovered just a year prior,
crashed into Jupiter over several days, creating huge, dark scars in the
planet’s atmosphere and lofting superheated plumes into its stratosphere.
…
Jay TateFor the first time, astronomers at the University
of Hawaii have demonstrated that their ATLAS and Pan-STARRS survey telescopes
can provide sufficient warning to move people away from the impact site of an
incoming asteroid. They detected a small asteroid prior to its entering the
Earth’s atmosphere near Puerto Rico on the morning of June 22,
…
Jay TateEvery single day, many tons of tiny rocks – smaller
than pebbles – hit Earth’s atmosphere and disintegrate. Between frequent
shooting stars we wish on in the night sky and the massive extinction-level
asteroids that we hope we never see, there is a middle ground of rocks sized to
make it through the atmosphere and do serious damage to a limited area.
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Jay TateDesigned to explore a metal asteroid that could be
the heart of a planet, the Psyche mission is readying for a 2022 launch. After
extensive review, NASA Headquarters in Washington has approved the mission to
begin the final design and fabrication phase, otherwise known as Phase C. This
is when the Psyche team finalizes the system design,
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Jay TateWhenever scientists announce an upcoming close encounter with an
asteroid, certain corners of the internet light up like the synaptic rush that
accompanies a meth binge, with panicky headlines shouted straight from the
brain stem. But never mind that. We’re not that corner of the internet. We’re
sober, yo!
The fact
of the matter is,
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Jay TateBy Jonathan AmosBBC Science Correspondent
Scientists think
the time has come for a full geophysical survey of The Minch, to see if the
Scottish strait is hiding an ancient meteorite crater.
The idea that such
a structure lies between the Western Isles and mainland Scotland was first
raised back in 2008.
…
Jay TateThe unique capabilities of the SPHERE instrument on
ESO’s Very Large Telescope have enabled it to obtain the sharpest images of a
double asteroid as it flew by Earth on 25 May. While this double asteroid was
not itself a threatening object, scientists used the opportunity to rehearse
the response to a hazardous Near-Earth Object (NEO),
…
Jay TateIt looked like a scene from a sci-fi blockbuster: an astronomer in the Netherlands captured footage of a train of brightly-lit SpaceX satellites ascending through the night sky this weekend, stunning space enthusiasts across the globe.
But the sight has also provoked an outcry among astronomers who say the constellation,
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