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 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 ...

Team links comet water to Earth's oceans

Researchers have found that water on Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko has a similar molecular signature to the water in Earth's oceans. Contradicting some recent results, this finding reopens the case that Jupiter-family ...

Interstellar objects can't hide from Vera Rubin

We have studied the skies for centuries, but we have only found two objects known to come from another star system. The first interstellar object to be confirmed was 1I/2017 U1, more commonly known as 'Oumuamua. It was discovered ...

Dragonfly is going to Titan on a Falcon Heavy

NASA has given SpaceX the contract to launch the Dragonfly mission to Saturn's moon Titan. A Falcon Heavy will send the rotorcraft and its lander on their way to Titan in 2028, if all goes according to plan, and the mission ...

BepiColombo's fifth Mercury flyby

On Sunday 1 December 2024, BepiColombo flew past the planet Mercury for the fifth time, readying itself for entering orbit around the solar system's mysterious innermost planet in 2026.

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