Despite their overall similarities, asteroids are usually pretty distinct from one another. Vesta has a very different spectroscopic profile than Psyche, for example. So it might come as no surprise that another of the main ...
Astronomy
Mar 17, 2025
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33
NASA's Lucy spacecraft has its next flyby target, the small main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson, in its sights. By blinking between images captured by Lucy on Feb. 20 and 22, this animation shows the perceived motion of Donaldjohanson ...
Astronomy
Feb 25, 2025
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144
The organic material found in a few areas on the surface of dwarf planet Ceres is probably of exogenic origin. Impacting asteroids from the outer asteroid belt may have brought it with them.
Astrobiology
Jan 27, 2025
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277
Emily Simpson has loved space since she was a 10-year-old kid celebrating her birthday at a planetarium. Now a recent Florida Tech graduate, she leaves with not only a dual degree in planetary science and astronomy and astrophysics ...
Planetary Sciences
Jan 13, 2025
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260
Pocked with craters, the surfaces of many celestial bodies in our solar system provide clear evidence of a 4.6-billion-year battering by meteoroids and other space debris. But on some worlds, including the giant asteroid ...
Planetary Sciences
Dec 21, 2024
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128
On Dec. 12, at 11:15 p.m. EST, NASA's Lucy spacecraft, currently in a two-year orbit around the sun, will skim Earth's atmosphere, passing only about 220 miles (360 kilometers) above the surface. This close flyby will result ...
Space Exploration
Dec 12, 2024
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46
The first dark comet—a celestial object that looks like an asteroid but moves through space like a comet—was reported less than two years ago. Soon after, another six were found. In a new paper, researchers announce the discovery ...
Planetary Sciences
Dec 9, 2024
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199
The asteroid that extinguished the dinosaurs is estimated to have been about 10 kilometers across. That's about as wide as Brooklyn. Such a massive impactor is predicted to hit Earth rarely, once every 100 million to 500 ...
Planetary Sciences
Dec 9, 2024
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47
Six years ago, NASA's Dawn mission communicated with Earth for the last time, ending its exploration of Ceres and Vesta, the two largest bodies in the asteroid belt. Since then, Ceres —a water-rich dwarf planet showing signs ...
Astrobiology
Dec 4, 2024
2
903
A mysterious object discovered in the main asteroid belt in 2021 was determined to be a main-belt comet by Planetary Science Institute Senior Scientist Henry Hsieh, Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution for Science and ...
Astronomy
Dec 3, 2024
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