It's been said that a single asteroid might be worth trillions of dollars in precious rare metals. Will we ever reach out and mine these space rocks? How hard could it be?
Space Exploration
Jan 9, 2015
9
70
Japan's space agency says its Hayabusa2 spacecraft has released a small rover that will land on the surface of an asteroid as part its final mission before heading back to Earth.
Space Exploration
Oct 3, 2019
3
601
NASA is moving forward with a plan to develop a refrigerator-sized spacecraft capable of deflecting asteroids and preventing them from colliding with Earth.
Space Exploration
Jul 4, 2017
0
144
An international team of astronomers has used ESO telescopes to investigate a relic of the primordial Solar System. The team found that the unusual Kuiper Belt Object 2004 EW95 is a carbon-rich asteroid, the first of its ...
Space Exploration
May 9, 2018
0
284
NASA's Psyche spacecraft passed its six-month checkup with a clean bill of health, and there's no holding back now. Navigators are firing its futuristic-looking electric thrusters, which emit a blue glow, nearly nonstop as ...
Space Exploration
May 22, 2024
0
92
It is known that gas giants around other stars are often located very near their sun. According to accepted theory, these gas planets were formed far away and subsequently migrated to an orbit closer to the star. Now, researchers ...
Astronomy
Mar 25, 2019
50
849
Some 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer asteroid hit Earth, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs. New evidence suggests that the Chicxulub impact also triggered an earthquake so massive that it shook the planet for ...
Earth Sciences
Oct 6, 2022
0
175
Was it a catastrophic collision in the star's asteroid belt? A giant impact that disrupted a nearby planet? A dusty cloud of rock and debris? A family of comets breaking apart? Or was it alien megastructures built to harvest ...
Astronomy
Nov 25, 2015
6
1109
When NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft collected samples from asteroid Bennu's surface in 2020, forces measured during the interaction provided scientists with a direct test of the poorly understood near-subsurface physical properties ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 7, 2022
0
72
Astronomers have witnessed for the first time the breakup of an asteroid into as many as 10 smaller pieces. The discovery is published online March 6 in Astrophysical Journal Letters.
Astronomy
Mar 6, 2014
65
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