Search results for Asteroid Belt

Planetary Sciences Dec 9, 2024

Astronomers find the smallest asteroids ever detected in the main belt

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 ...

Astrobiology Dec 4, 2024

New evidence of organic material identified on Ceres, the inner solar system's most water-rich object after Earth

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 ...

Earth Sciences Dec 4, 2024

Massive asteroid impacts did not change Earth's climate in the long term, research finds

Two massive asteroids hit Earth around 35.65 million years ago, but did not lead to any lasting changes in the Earth's climate, according to a study by UCL researchers.

Astronomy Dec 3, 2024

Planetary scientists confirm new main-belt comet

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 ...

Planetary Sciences Nov 29, 2024

How much are asteroids really worth?

Popular media love talking about asteroid mining using big numbers. Many articles talk about a mission to Psyche, the largest metallic asteroid in the asteroid belt, as visiting a body worth $10,000,000,000,000,000,000, presumably ...

Planetary Sciences Nov 29, 2024

Ryugu asteroid samples indicate damage from microscopic meteoroid bombardment

Asteroids are remnants of the formation of our solar system, and while many can be found within the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, some cannot. One such object is asteroid (162173) Ryugu, a 1 km-wide ...

Astronomy Nov 26, 2024

Ultrawide binary objects in the Kuiper belt may not have come from the earliest solar system, research suggests

Trying to understand the makeup and evolution of the solar system's Kuiper belt has kept researchers busy since it was hypothesized soon after the discovery of Pluto in 1930. In particular, binary pairs of objects there are ...

Planetary Sciences Nov 25, 2024

Earth-bound asteroids 'could be tracked more precisely' with new equation

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.

Astronomy Nov 6, 2024

New report details what happened to the Arecibo Observatory

In 1963, the Arecibo Observatory became operational on the island of Puerto Rico. Measuring 305 meters (~1000 ft) in diameter, Arecibo's spherical reflector dish was the largest radio telescope in the world at the time—a ...

Astronomy Nov 6, 2024

Asteroid grains shed light on the outer solar system's origins

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.

page 12 from 40