At first glance, looking at a bunch of space rocks doesn't sound that exciting. Like, aren't they just a bunch of rubble? What use can they be in understanding the Solar System compared to looking at planets or moons?
Space Exploration
Feb 3, 2015
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Planetary Science Institute researchers Vishnu Reddy and Driss Takir studied the surface composition of near-Earth asteroid 2004 BL86 during its close flyby of Earth earlier this week.
Space Exploration
Jan 28, 2015
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NASA's Dawn spacecraft has returned the sharpest images ever seen of the dwarf planet Ceres. The images were taken 147,000 miles (237,000 kilometers) from Ceres on Jan. 25, and represent a new milestone for a spacecraft that ...
Space Exploration
Jan 27, 2015
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I don't think I ever learned one of those little rhymes – My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas – to memorize the order of the planets, but if I had, it would've painted for me a minimalist picture of the ...
Space Exploration
Jan 27, 2015
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(Phys.org)—Protoplanet Vesta, visited by NASA's Dawn spacecraft from 2011 to 2013, was once thought to be completely dry, incapable of retaining water because of the low temperatures and pressures at its surface. However, ...
Space Exploration
Jan 23, 2015
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(Phys.org)—As NASA's Dawn spacecraft closes in on Ceres, new images show the dwarf planet at 27 pixels across, about three times better than the calibration images taken in early December. These are the first in a series ...
Space Exploration
Jan 19, 2015
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Asteroid Bennu, the target of OSIRIS-REx, NASA's first mission to a pristine carbonaceous asteroid that may hold clues to the origins of life in our solar system, took center stage at the AAS's Division for Planetary Sciences ...
Space Exploration
Dec 16, 2014
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The Dawn spacecraft has delivered a glimpse of Ceres, the largest body in the main asteroid belt, in a new image taken 740,000 miles (1.2 million kilometers) from the dwarf planet. This is Dawn's best image yet of Ceres as ...
Space Exploration
Dec 5, 2014
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Asteroids and comets have a few things in common. They are both celestial bodies orbiting our Sun, and they both can have unusual orbits, sometimes straying close to Earth or the other planets. They are both "leftovers"—made ...
Space Exploration
Nov 20, 2014
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A team of 14 scientists led by David Williams of Arizona State University's School of Earth and Space Exploration has completed the first global geologic and tectonic map of the asteroid Vesta. The work reveals that Vesta's ...
Space Exploration
Nov 17, 2014
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