NASA's Dawn mission is drawing to a close after 11 years of breaking new ground in planetary science, gathering breathtaking imagery, and performing unprecedented feats of spacecraft engineering.
Space Exploration
Sep 10, 2018
0
9
The detection of "mini-moons"—small asteroids temporarily captured in orbit around Earth—will vastly improve our scientific understanding of asteroids and the Earth-Moon system, says a new review published in Frontiers ...
Space Exploration
Aug 13, 2018
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65
As NASA's Dawn spacecraft prepares to wrap up its groundbreaking 11-year mission, which has included two successful extended missions at Ceres, it will continue to explore—collecting images and other data.
Space Exploration
Jul 17, 2018
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78
Most asteroids and meteorites originate from the splintering of a handful of minor planets formed during the infancy of our solar system, a new study shows.
Astronomy
Jul 2, 2018
15
244
NASA's Dawn spacecraft is maneuvering to its lowest-ever orbit for a close-up examination of the inner solar system's only dwarf planet.
Space Exploration
May 31, 2018
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119
Several privately funded space companies are locked in a race to claim the trillions of pounds worth of precious metals thought to exist in asteroids. The UK has now entered the race, with the Asteroid Mining Corporation ...
Space Exploration
May 2, 2018
15
57
A new analysis of a meteorite called Bunburra Rockhole has revealed that the rock originated from a previously unknown parent asteroid, allowing scientists to understand the geology of the parent body.
Space Exploration
Nov 16, 2017
3
50
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) was part of an international team that recently discovered a relatively unpopulated region of the main asteroid belt, where the few asteroids present are likely pristine relics from early ...
Space Exploration
Aug 3, 2017
1
235
Asteroids on the main belt, situated between Mars and Jupiter, move around the sun in quasi circular orbits, so they do not undergo the temperature changes which, in comets, produce the characteristic tails. Nevertheless, ...
Space Exploration
Mar 2, 2017
0
25
While best known for its surveys of the stars and mapping the Milky Way in three dimensions, ESA's Gaia has many more strings to its bow. Among them, its contribution to our understanding of the asteroids that litter the ...
Space Exploration
Jan 24, 2017
2
52
