Jay TateBecause of their potential to deepen our understanding of the solar system and beyond, NASA this week extended the missions of eight of its spacecraft, including OSIRIS-REx-and Northern Arizona University planetary geologist Chris Haberle will be one of the scientists involved in the newly extended project.
OSIRIS-REx (Origins,
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Jay TatePowerful radar systems have played a major role in the study of planets, moons, asteroids, and other objects in our Solar System for several decades, and now have a “unique role” to play in planetary defense – “providing protection to the nations of the world from devastating asteroid and comet impacts,”
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Jay TateCurrently, the only asteroid defense project to have truly gotten off the ground is the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission, an initiative developed by NASA and John Hopkins University.
China is planning a new initiative to combat the threat of a potential asteroid impact on Earth, Chinese Defense Minister Wu Yanhua said Sunday morning,
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Jay TateNASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has determined the size of the largest icy comet nucleus ever seen by astronomers. The estimated diameter is approximately 80 miles across, making it larger than the state of Rhode Island. The nucleus is about 50 times larger than found at the heart of most known comets.
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Jay TateThe study, in which the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Universidad Estatal Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho (Julio de Mesquita Filho Paulista State University) (UNESP) of Brazil are participating, analyses the surface and dynamics of Apophis, an asteroid that will pass close to Earth in 2029.
The Apophis asteroid was discovered in 2004 and has been monitored since then due to its classification as a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA),
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Jay TateAsteroids hold many clues about the formation and evolution of planets and their satellites. Understanding their history can, therefore, reveal much about our solar system. While observations made from a distance using electromagnetic waves and telescopes are useful, analyzing samples retrieved from asteroids can yield much more detail about their characteristics and how they may have formed.
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Jay TateAt 19:24 UTC on 11 March 2022, astronomer Krisztian Sarneczky discovered a bright and fast-moving new object in the sky using the 60cm Schmidt telescope at the Piszkesteto observatory, Hungary. He collected four observations in quick succession, and just 14 minutes later reported his findings to the Minor Planet Center (MPC),
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Jay TateAsteroid 2022 EB5 was too small to pose a hazard to Earth, but its discovery marks the fifth time that any asteroid has been observed before impacting into the atmosphere.
A small asteroid hit Earth’s atmosphere over the Norwegian Sea before disintegrating on March 11, 2022. But this event wasn’t a complete surprise: Astronomers knew it was on a collision course,
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Jay TateThe Earth exists in a dangerous environment. Cosmic bodies, like asteroids and comets, are constantly zooming through space and often crash into our planet. Most of these are too small to pose a threat, but some can be cause for concern.
As a scholar who studies space and international security,
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Jay TateAn international team of astronomers has discovered a pair of asteroids that split off from their parent body a mere 300 years ago. The duo is exceptional because it is the youngest known “asteroid pair” by at least a factor of ten, it passes close to Earth’s orbit, and it has properties that are hard to explain given its young age.
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