Tag: asteroids

ESA and JAXA sign agreement to increase cooperation and accelerate development of Ramses mission to Apophis

10:18 am

The new colonial movement: The European Space Agency (ESA) and Japan’s own space agency JAXA on November 20, 2024 signed a new cooperative agreement to increase their joint work on several missions, the most important of which is the proposed Ramses mission to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis during its 2029 close fly-by of Earth.

Two agencies agreed to accelerate to study potential cooperation for ESA’s Rapid Apophis Mission for Space Safety (RAMSES) which aims to explore the asteroid Apophis that will pass close to our planet on 13 April 2029, including but not limited to provision of thermal infrared imager and solar array wings as well as possible launch opportunities.

The two countries are already working together on two different planetary missions, the BepiColombo mission to Mercury and the Hera mission to the asteroid Dymorphos. Both are on their way to their targets. This new agreement solidifies the commitment of both to make sure Ramses is funded, built, and launched in the relatively short time left before that 2029 Earth fly-by. At the moment the ESA has still not officially funded it fully.

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Lab tests suggest water brines could also exist on large asteroids

12:28 pm

Gullies in crater on Vesta
Click for original image.

In attempting to explain the existence of flow features that have been found on the interior walls of craters on the asteroids Ceres and Vesta — as shown in the image above — scientists recently performed a laboratory experiment which determined that a mixture of water and salt could produce those gullies.

The team modified a test chamber at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory to rapidly decrease pressure over a liquid sample to simulate the dramatic drop in pressure as the temporary atmosphere created after an impact on an airless body like Vesta dissipates. According to Poston, the pressure drop was so fast that test liquids immediately and dramatically expanded, ejecting material from the sample containers.

“Through our simulated impacts, we found that the pure water froze too quickly in a vacuum to effect meaningful change, but salt and water mixtures, or brines, stayed liquid and flowing for a minimum of one hour,” said Poston. “This is sufficient for the brine to destabilize slopes on crater walls on rocky bodies, cause erosion and landslides, and potentially form other unique geological features found on icy moons.”

The press release makes it sound as if this result makes the existence of subsurface water ice more likely on such asteroids as Ceres and Vesta, but previous research from the Dawn asteroid probe made that fact very clear, especially for Ceres, years ago. All this does is provide some evidence of what might be one process by which these erosion gullies form.

Hat tip to reader Milt.

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ESA awards OHB Italia a preliminary contract to build Ramses probe to Apophis

9:22 am

The European Space Agency (ESA) yesterday awarded the company OHB Italia a €63 million preliminary contract to begin work on mission dubbed Ramses that will launch in 2028 and rendezvous with the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis when it flies past the Earth on April 13, 2029 at a distance of less than 20,000 miles.

The contract award is preliminary because the entire project still has to be approved by the ESA ministral council of nations, meeting in 2025. Because of the short development time, however, ESA’s management found funds from its existing budget to begin work.

To speed work, the project is also using as its design basis the Hera asteroid spacecraft, which was recently launched to study the binary asteroids Didymos-Dimorphos. That mission was also built remarkably fast for a European space project, going from contract to launch in just four years.

NASA has already re-tasked its OSIRIS-REx asteroid mission to head for Apophis, renaming it OSIRIS-APEX for reasons that baffle me. The mission had successfully delivered samples from the asteroid Bennu, but after completing that mission had sufficient fuel and was well placed to do this additional rendezvous as well.

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Scientists: most asteroids come from a limited number of earlier break-ups

10:04 am

According to three different recently published papers (available here, here, and here), the majority of all meteorites hitting the Earth likely came from a limited number of specific past break-ups of larger asteroids.

New studies show that 70% of the 70,000 meteorites that have been found on Earth have come from 3 recent collisions in the main asteroid belt which sits between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The collisions occurred 5.8, 7.5 and 40 million years ago, according to the studies. They correspond to 3 young asteroid “families” known as Karin, Koronis and Massalia. These families formed from the destruction of asteroids at least 30km across.

The 70% number comes from data in the last two papers above, while the first paper claims it is more like 80% of all asteroids. The Massalia family is the most dominate, with it estimated to be the source 37% of all meteorites as well as a major impact half a billion years ago.

The first study also found that both Ryugu and Bennu came from the same event and are part of another family of asteroids called Polana.

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First test images sent back by Hera asteroid probe

9:19 am

The Earth and Moon system as seen by Hera
Click for original image.

During its initial in-space commissioning to make sure everything is working properly after an October 7, 2024 launch, engineers have successfully taken the first test images by Hera asteroid probe, proving those instruments are operating as intended.

The picture to the right, cropped, reduced, and sharpened to post here, was taken by the spacecraft’s mid-infrared camera, and shows both the Earth (lower left) and the Moon (upper right) as seen from a little less than a million miles away. Once Hera reaches the binary asteroid system of Didymos and Dimorphos, this instrument will be used to measure the changes of temperature on the asteroids’ surface.

Images of Earth taken by two other instruments proved those instruments were functioning properly as well.

Hera is a European Space Agency (ESA) follow-up asteroid mission to see up close what changes were caused to Dimorphos by the impact of NASA’s Dart mission in 2022. It will rendezvous with the asteroid in late 2026 after flying past Mars and its moon Deimos in earlier that year. It will then spend about a half year flying in formation with the asteroids before a planned landing in late July 2027.

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Mitsuibishi’s H3 rocket wins launch contract from UAE

8:55 am

Capitalism in space: The United Arab Emirates (UAE) yesterday announced that it has awarded the launch contract for its first unmanned probe to the asteroid belt to the Japanese company Mitsuibishi and its new H3 rocket.

The UAE Space Agency (UAESA) announced Oct. 10 it selected Mitsubishi Heavy Industries to launch its Emirates Mission to the Asteroid Belt (EMA) on an H3 rocket in the first quarter of 2028. Terms of the contract were not disclosed.

The spacecraft, also known as MBR Explorer after Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Crown Prince of Dubai, will fly by six main belt asteroids between 2030 and 2033 before rendezvousing on a seventh, Justitia, in 2034, later deploying a lander.

This mission is the third that the UAE has selected MHI to launch. An H-2A rocket launched the Emirates Mars Mission, a Mars orbiter, in 2020, while KhalifaSat, a remote sensing satellite, launched as a secondary payload on another H-2A in 2018.

What makes this launch contract different from the previous two is that the winner is Mitsubishi. Previous awards went through Japan’s space agency JAXA, which appeared to manage the H2A entirely. Now, Mitsubishi is in control, and is working directly with its customer.

This change proves that Japan’s government effort to promote private enterprise in space is real, that though it has been slow to wrest bureaucratic control from JAXA, that wresting is happening nonetheless.

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SpaceX launches Europe’s Hera asteroid mission

8:41 am

SpaceX today successfully launched the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera asteroid mission to the binary asteroid Didymos and Dimorphos, its Falcon 9 rocket lifting off from Cape Canaveral.

The first stage completed its 23rd rocket, but was not recovered in order to maximum the fuel used to send Hera on its proper route. The fairings completed their 13th and 19th flights respectively.

Hera will do a follow-up rendezvous with the binary asteroids to get a close-up look at the consequences of the Dart impact back in 2022 of Dimorphos.

The leaders in the 2024 launch race:

96 SpaceX
44 China
11 Russia
11 Rocket Lab

American private enterprise now leads the rest of the world combined in successful launches 113 to 67, while SpaceX by itself now leads the entire world, including American companies, 96 to 84.

For SpaceX, this launch ties the record the company set last year for the number of launches of a private company in a single year, and it did so in just more than three-quarters of the year. The company’s goal of 144 launches in 2024 remains possible, assuming the federal government stopped blocking its operations. For example, the FAA granted the company permission for this one launch, but maintained its grounding of further launches because an upper stage did not land safely in the ocean in the exact right spot.

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Engineers set new laser communications record to asteroid probe Psyche

9:16 am

Psyche-Earth laser communications record
Click for original graphic.

As part of a continuing test program, engineers have set a new long distance laser communications record, exceeding 290 million miles, by successfully using a laser to send communicate with the asteroid probe Psyche from Earth.

The graph to the right, not to scale, shows the orbital configuation of the laser record. It appears however that little actual data was sent in this last test. It merely demonstrated that a link could be established. An actual data transfer record by laser occurred in June.

On June 24, when Psyche was about 240 million miles (390 million kilometers) from Earth — more than 2½ times the distance between our planet and the Sun — the project achieved a sustained downlink data rate of 6.25 megabits per second, with a maximum rate of 8.3 megabits per second. While this rate is significantly lower than the experiment’s maximum, it is far higher than what a radio frequency communications system using comparable power can achieve over that distance.

The high data rates promised by laser communications will significantly improve deep space operations. Most especially, the ability to get data back in much larger packets more quickly will reduce the antenna bottleneck on Earth that limits the number of missions as well as the data can be returned daily. More missions will be able to fly, and scientists and engineers will get their results faster.

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Scientists detect jets of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide from asteroid

9:45 am

Jets from asteroid
Click for original graphic.

Using the spectroscopy from the Webb Space Telescope, scientists have now detected jets of carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide spewing from the very active asteroid 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann-1 (29P).

Based on the data gathered by Webb, the team created a 3D model of the jets to understand their orientation and origin. They found through their modeling efforts that the jets were emitted from different regions on the centaur’s nucleus, even though the nucleus itself cannot be resolved by Webb. The jets’ angles suggest the possibility that the nucleus may be an aggregate of distinct objects with different compositions; however, other scenarios can’t yet be excluded.

The graphic to the right illustrates the modeling of these jets. That the center of this two-lobed asteroid could have been created from distinct objects suggests a very complex formation process, since those objects would have had to have formed themselves in different locations in the solar system and then somehow come together.

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Newly discovered potentially dangerous asteroid found to be a contact binary

11:38 am

Radar images of asteroid 2024ON
Click for original image.

Radar images taken during the close fly of a newly discovered potentially dangerous asteroid has revealed that it is a contact binary, formed by two objects stuck together to produce a single asteroid with a peanutlike shape.

Discovered by the NASA-funded Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) on Mauna Loa in Hawaii on July 27, the near-Earth asteroid’s shape resembles that of a peanut. Like the asteroid 2024 JV33 that made close approach with Earth a month earlier, 2024 ON is likely a contact binary, with two rounded lobes separated by a pronounced neck, one lobe about 50% larger than the other. The radar images determined that it is about 755 feet (350 meters) long. Features larger than 12.3 feet (3.75 meters) across can be seen on the surface. Bright radar spots on the asteroid’s surface likely indicate large boulders. The images show about 90% of one rotation over the course of about six hours.

The radar images were taken one day before that close approach of 620,000 miles on September 17, 2024, and once again show that a large number of near-Earth asteroids, as much as 14%, are contact binaries. The data also helped better refine 2024ON’s orbit around the Sun, which show that though the asteroid has the potential to hit the Earth, its path will not do so for the foreseeable future.

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NASA asks space industry for proposals on using the shelved Janus probes on mission to Apophis

9:23 am

NASA has now put out a request for proposals from the space industry for refitting the two Janus planetary probes, whose asteroid mission was shelved when its launch as a secondary payload was delayed due to problems with the Psyche primary payload, as a mission to the asteroid Apophis in connection with its April 13, 2029 close approach to the Earth.

NASA has been studying this new mission goal since early 2023, but apparently had failed to come up with a plan. It is now asking the private sector for suggestions on getting it done, including finding the funding for any plans.

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Two-lobed asteroid imaged by radar

10:04 am

Two-lobed asteroid
Click for original image.

During the August 18, 2024 first close fly-by of a potentially-dangerous asteroid only discovered back in May, astronomers used the Goldstone dish in California to produce the high resolution radar images shown in the picture to the right, reduced and sharpened to post here.

The images were captured when the asteroid was at a distance of 2.8 million miles (4.6 million kilometers), about 12 times the distance between the Moon and Earth.

Discovered by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Arizona, on May 4, the near-Earth asteroid’s shape resembles that of a peanut – with two rounded lobes, one lobe larger than the other. Scientists used the radar images to determine that it is about 980 feet (300 meters) long and that its length is about double its width. Asteroid 2024 JV33 rotates once every seven hours.

Asteroids formed as contact binaries, once considered the stuff of science fiction, have now been found to be relatively common, comprising about 14% of the near Earth asteroids larger than 700 feet across that have been radar-imaged. The refined orbital data suggests this asteroid might be a dead comet, though that conclusion is unconfirmed. That orbital data also tells us that though this object has the potential of hitting the Earth, it will not do so “for the foreseeable future.”

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Was the Chicxulub bolide 65 million years ago an asteroid from beyond Jupiter?

9:21 am

According to a new study, the Chicxulub bolide that impacted the Yucatan 65 million years ago and is thought to have been a major cause of the extinction of the dinosaurs was likely a carbonaceous-type asteroid from beyond Jupiter.

The researchers attempted to pinpoint the nature of that bolide by analyzing the isotope samples from the thin layer of materials found worldwide that corresponds to the impact (dubbed the K-Pg boundary) as well number of different impact samples from different layers.

To address these questions, Mario Fischer-Gödde and colleagues evaluated ruthenium (Ru) isotopes in samples taken from the K-Pg boundary. For comparison, they also analyzed samples from five other asteroid impacts from the last 541 million years, samples from ancient Archaean-age (3.5 – 3.2 billion-years-old) impact-related spherule layers, and samples from two carbonaceous meteorites.

Ficher-Gödde et al. found that the Ru isotope signatures in samples from the K-Pg boundary were uniform and closely matched those of carbonaceous chondrites (CCs), not Earth or other meteorite types, suggesting that the Chicxulub impactor likely came from a C-type asteroid that formed in the outer Solar System. They also rule out a comet as the impactor. Ancient Archean samples also suggest impactors with a CC-like composition, indicating a similar outer Solar System origin and perhaps representing material that impacted during Earth’s final stages of accretion. In contrast, other impact sites from different periods showed Ru isotope compositions consistent with S-type (salicaceous) asteroids from the inner Solar System.

My headline poses this result as a question because these results are unconfirmed, and based on a very small sample of data. Nonetheless, this research not only gives us a better idea of the nature of the Chicxulub impactor, it does the same for a number of other important past impacts. That data in turn will help theorists refine their theories describing the early formation history of the solar system.

Sidebar: As always, there are numerous stories today in the mainstream press going ga-ga over this paper and declaring with certainty the utter truth of its conclusions. This of course is junk reporting, as there is no utter truth here, only some educated speculation based on some new data.

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Webb data suggests the possibility of ice and hydrated minerals on surface of Psyche

9:33 am

Using the Webb Space Telescope, astronomers have detected evidence of hydrated minerals and even possibly a very tiny amount of water ice on the surface of the metal asteroid Psyche.

The Webb data point to hydroxyl and perhaps water on Psyche’s surface. The hydrated minerals could result from external sources, including impactors. If the hydration is native or endogenous, then Psyche may have a different evolutionary history than current models suggest. “Asteroids are leftovers from the planetary formation process, so their compositions vary depending on where they formed in the solar nebula,” said SwRI’s Dr. Anicia Arredondo, another co-author. “Hydration that is endogenous could suggest that Psyche is not the remnant core of a protoplanet. Instead, it could suggest that Psyche originated beyond the ‘snow line,’ the minimum distance from the Sun where protoplanetary disc temperatures are low enough for volatile compounds to condense into solids, before migrating to the outer main belt.”

However, the paper found the variability in the strength of the hydration features across the observations implies a heterogeneous distribution of hydrated minerals. This variability suggests a complex surface history that could be explained by impacts from carbonaceous chondrite asteroids thought to be very hydrated.

You can read the research paper here [pdf]. The actual amount of water possible is at most 39 parts per million and is also an order of magnitude lower than that found on the Moon, which strongly suggests that it comes from outside sources, such as impacts from other asteroids, not from the inherent geological history of Psyche itself.

The uncertainties of this research, which are large, which should be resolved when the probe Psyche, launched last year, reaches the asteroid Psyche in August 2029.

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WISE/NEOWISE space telescope mission ends after fourteen years

9:11 pm

Comet NEOWISE, photographed by the Hubble Space Telescope
Click for full image.

Launched in 2009, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) was shut down today after almost fourteen years of successful observations, with its first years dedicated to creating an infrared survey of the sky. In 2013, after two years of hibernation, it was reactivated and renamed NEOWISE (for reasons that I have always found absurd), with the goal over the next thirteen years of mapping the sky for near Earth objects.

By repeatedly observing the sky from low Earth orbit, NEOWISE created all-sky maps featuring 1.45 million infrared measurements of more than 44,000 solar system objects. Of the 3,000-plus near-Earth objects it detected, 215 were first spotted by NEOWISE. The mission also discovered 25 new comets, including the famed comet C/2020 F3 NEOWISE that streaked across the night sky in the summer of 2020.

A Hubble image of that comet is to the right.

The mission was ended because the telescope’s orbit is now too low to provide good data. It is expected to re-enter the atmosphere and burn up before the end of the year.

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Gaia space telescope identifies more than 350 asteroids with candidate moons

9:24 am

Using the Gaia space telescope, astronomers have identified 352 asteroids that the data suggests have smaller satellite asteroids in orbit around them.

In its data release 3, Gaia precisely pinpointed the positions and motions of 150 000+ asteroids — so precisely that scientists could dig deeper and hunt for asteroids displaying the characteristic ‘wobble’ caused by the tug of an orbiting companion (the same mechanism as displayed here for a binary star). Gaia also gathered data on asteroid chemistry, compiling the largest ever collection of asteroid ‘reflectance spectra’ (light curves that reveal an object’s colour and composition).

These results need to be confirmed by direct observation, as this method does involve some assumptions and uncertainties. If these numbers are confirmed however it will give planetary scientists a better census on the percentage of asteroids with moons, which in turn can be used to create better models of the formation of the solar system as well as the evolution of asteroids over time. At the moment scientists predict about one out of every six asteroids will have a moon. This data suggests that number might be high.

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Research from DART impact mission determines approximate ages of the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos

12:54 pm

Computer simulation of formation of Dimorphos
Click for full animation

A release this week of new research papers based on data obtained during the impact mission of DART on the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022 has determined the approximate ages of both Dimorphos and the larger asteroid Didumos that it orbits.

Analysis suggested that both Didymos and Dimorphos have weak surface characteristics, which led the team to posit that Didymos has a surface age 40–130 times older than Dimorphos, with the former estimated to be 12.5 million years and the latter less than 300,000 years old.

This research also did a computer simulation that suggests Dimorphos was formed because of Didymos’ fast rotation rate, the fastest asteroid rotation rate so far measured. The spin caused first the development of a ridge on the equator of Didymos, which later literally threw material into space which later coalesced to form the satellite Dimorphus. The graphic to the right is from that simulation.

Other research studied the boulder distribution of Dimorphos, and structural nature of both asteroids.

A European mission, Hera, is scheduled to launch in October 2024 and rendezvous with Didymos and Dimorphos in 2026, obtaining close-up data following the DART 2022 impact.

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ESA announces asteroid mission to Apophis

9:06 am

Apophis' path past the Earth in 2029
A cartoon showing Apophis’s path in 2029

The European Space Agency (ESA) today announced that is beginning work on an asteroid mission, dubbed Ramses, to the potentially dangerous asteroid Apophis when it makes its next close-fly of the Earth in 2029.

Ramses needs to launch in April 2028 to allow for an arrival at Apophis in February 2029, two months before the close approach. In order to meet this deadline, ESA requested permission to begin preparatory work on the mission as soon as possible using existing resources. This permission has been granted by the Space Safety programme board. The decision whether to commit to the mission in full will take place at ESA’s Ministerial Council Meeting in November 2025.

Using a suite of scientific instruments, the spacecraft will conduct a thorough before-and-after survey of the asteroid’s shape, surface, orbit, rotation and orientation. By analysing how Apophis changes during the flyby, scientists will learn a lot about the response of an asteroid to external forces as well as asteroid composition, interior structure, cohesion, mass, density, and porosity.

Based on the track record of European space projects, which appear to always proceed at a glacial pace with late problems that cause the missions to miss their launch window (with the launch of the Franklin Mars rover as the poster child), the project is getting started far too late to meet its launch date of April 2028. We shall see if Europe surprises us this time and gets the project off the ground as planned.

Right now the only confirmed mission to Apophis is OSIRIS-APEX, which was redirected to the asteroid after it delivered its samples from Bennu to Earth. Many others have been proposed, including a commercial mission, but none appear to be confirmed or under construction.

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Radar detects tiny moon of asteroid

9:06 am

Binary asteroid
Click for original image.

Using the Goldstone radar dish, part of NASA’s Deep Space Network normally used to communicate with planetary missions, scientists have taken radar imageray of an asteroid that flew past the Earth at a distance of about 4.1 million miles on June 27, 2024, and discovered that it has its own tiny moon.

The series of radar images are above, reduced and cropped to post here.

Passing Earth on June 27, 2024, the asteroid was discovered in 2011 by the NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey, in Tucson, Arizona. This marked the first time it came close enough to Earth to be imaged by radar. While the nearly mile-wide object is classified as being potentially hazardous, calculations of its future orbits show that it won’t pose a threat to our planet for the foreseeable future.

In addition to determining the asteroid is roughly spherical, scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory discovered that it’s a binary system: A smaller asteroid, or moonlet, orbits it from a distance of about 1.9 miles.

It is intriguing that as their ability to make high resolution images of asteroids improves, scientists are discovering that such binary asteroid systems appear to be less and less rare, and might even be quite normal. If so, these facts will reshape all theories on the initial formation processes of the solar system.

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China planning an asteroid collision mission similar to DART

10:12 am

It appears China is putting together an asteroid collision mission similar to NASA 2022 DART mission that impacted the asteroid Dimorphus.

The China National Space Administration (CNSA) mission may have already selected its target — the near-Earth object (NEO) 2015 XF261, a nearly 100-foot-wide (30 meters) asteroid.

According to the small-body database managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), 2015 XF261 last came relatively close to Earth just this week, on Tuesday (July 9), when it passed within 31 million miles (50 million kilometers) of our planet. The space rock was traveling at around 26,000 mph (42,000 kph), roughly 30 times faster than the speed of sound.

Much of the information about this proposed comes from a very detailed a Planetary Society report, which said that the mission is targeting a 2027 launch and described the mission as follows:

The plan is for the observer spacecraft to reach the target asteroid first and conduct three to six months of close and orbiting observations to study the asteroid’s size, shape, composition, and orbit. Then the impactor spacecraft will perform a high-speed kinetic energy impact test with the target asteroid. The observer will monitor the entire impact process and evaluate the aftermath for 6-12 months to ascertain the effects.

As with DART, the claim is that this mission is primarily focused on planetary defense (learning how to prevent asteroid impacts of Earth). That claim however is bogus. While that component of the mission exists, it is not the primary purpose, which is to study asteroids themselves.

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