Asteroids as a research area encompasses the scientific investigation of small rocky bodies primarily located in the asteroid belt and throughout the Solar System, focusing on their composition, internal structure, dynamical evolution, and role in planetary formation and collisional processes. This field integrates observational astronomy, spectroscopy, celestial mechanics, planetary geology, and space mission data to constrain asteroid taxonomies, surface and subsurface properties, impact hazards, and resource potential. Research addresses accretion and differentiation histories, space weathering, binary and rubble-pile formation, migration mechanisms, and their contribution to the delivery of volatiles and organics to terrestrial planets, providing constraints on early Solar System conditions.
Getting a mission to the point of officially being accepted for launch is an ordeal. However, even when they aren't selected for implementation, their ideas, and in some cases, their technologies, can live on in other missions. ...
Space Exploration
Nov 26, 2024
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35
Identifying asteroids on a potential collision course with Earth could be made easier thanks to an advancement in how to track their orbits more precisely.
Planetary Sciences
Nov 25, 2024
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49
Planet Earth is parting company with an asteroid that's been tagging along as a "mini moon" for the past two months.
Space Exploration
Nov 25, 2024
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419
In an international study led by Western University and Lowell Observatory, scientists describe a pioneering, integrative approach for studying near-Earth asteroids based largely on a November 2022 fireball event that dropped ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 22, 2024
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87
Panspermia is the hypothesis that life can survive the transfer between planetary bodies as a secondary path for life to get started on planets throughout a solar system. The discovery of extraterrestrial life on asteroids ...
A NASA study using a series of supercomputer simulations reveals a potential new solution to a longstanding Martian mystery: How did Mars get its moons? The first step, the findings say, may have involved the destruction ...
Planetary Sciences
Nov 20, 2024
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70
ESA's Hera mission has completed the first critical maneuver on its journey to the Didymos binary asteroid system since launch on 7 October.
Space Exploration
Nov 8, 2024
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49
Tiny grains from a distant asteroid are revealing clues to the magnetic forces that shaped the far reaches of the solar system more than 4.6 billion years ago.
Astronomy
Nov 6, 2024
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103
The European Space Agency has given the go-ahead for initial work on a mission to visit an asteroid called (99942) Apophis. If approved at a key meeting next year, the robotic spacecraft, known as the Rapid Apophis Mission ...
Space Exploration
Nov 4, 2024
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70
In June 2018, Japan's Hayabusa 2 mission reached asteroid 162173 Ryugu. It studied the asteroid for about 15 months, deploying small rovers and a lander, before gathering a sample and returning it to Earth in December 2020.
Planetary Sciences
Oct 31, 2024
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