The reactivation of Rosetta continues, with no serious issues so far.
The reactivation of Rosetta continues, with no serious issues so far.
Tag: asteroids
Astronomers have detected water vapor spurting from Ceres, the solar system’s largest asteroid.
Using the Herschel Space Telescope astronomers have detected water vapor spurting from Ceres, the solar system’s largest asteroid.
Herschel’s sensors spied plumes during three of the four observation periods. The strength of absorption varied over a matter of hours, a trend probably caused by relatively small sources of water vapour rotating in and out of view of Earth, the researchers say.
Data gathered in March 2013 suggest that the plumes originated from two widely separated, 60-kilometre-wide spots in the dwarf planetโs mid-latitude regions. Together, these spots ejected about 6 kilograms of water vapour into space each second. Neither ground-based observations nor images from the Hubble Space Telescope are keen enough to identify the as-yet-mysterious areas, says Kรผppers. โWe donโt know what these features are, we just know that theyโre darker than their surroundings,โ he notes.
The NASA probe Dawn will arrive at Ceres early next year, and take a good look at these plumes. Should be exciting.
The recently reactivated WISE space telescope has discovered its first new asteroid.
The recently reactivated WISE space telescope has discovered its first new asteroid.
2013 YP139 is about 27 million miles (43 million kilometers) from Earth. Based on its infrared brightness, scientists estimate it to be roughly 0.4 miles (650 meters) in diameter and extremely dark, like a piece of coal. The asteroid circles the sun in an elliptical orbit tilted to the plane of our solar system and is classified as potentially hazardous. It is possible for its orbit to bring it as close as 300,000 miles from Earth, a little more than the distance to the moon. However, it will not come that close within the next century.
WISE, renamed NEOWISE by NASA, is expected to come up with a lot more of these in the coming years.
WISE, the Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer, sent back its first images in almost three years this week.
Back from the dead: WISE sent back its first images in almost three years this week.
The Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer spacecraft, or NEOWISE, has taken its first set of test images since being reactivated in September after a 31-month-long hibernation, NASA officials announced today (Dec. 19). The space agency wants NEOWISE to resume its hunt for potentially dangerous asteroids, some of which could be promising targets for future human exploration.
We should note that NASA had shut down this functional space telescope even though the cost to use it to hunt asteroids would be relatively little. Cost was cited as the reason, but I suspect it was a combination of the vast overruns for the James Webb Space Telescope and the Obama administration’s puzzling hostility to science at NASA.
Chinese scientists have concluded that the asteroid Toutatis is a rubble pile barely held together by gravity, based on data obtained from Chang’e 2’s flyby one year ago.
Chinese scientists have concluded that the asteroid Toutatis is a rubble pile barely held together by gravity, based on data obtained from Chang’e 2’s flyby one year ago.
Scientists detect evidence of the splash of clay material left by an asteroid or comet after it impacted Europa.
Scientists detect evidence of the splash of clay material left by an asteroid or comet after it impacted Europa.
New images of Comet ISON suggest it might have begun breaking up.
New images of Comet ISON suggest it might have begun breaking up.
Scientists have discovered a Kuiper Belt asteroid lighter than water.
Scientists have discovered a Kuiper Belt asteroid lighter than water.
Nor is the asteroid small, having a 400 mile diameter. It is thought is is made up mostly of ice, is not very densely packed, and is probably quite porous as well.
Hubble spots an asteroid spout six comet-like tails.
Hubble spots an asteroid spout six comet-like tails.
Astronomers viewing our solar system’s asteroid belt with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have seen for the first time an asteroid with six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel. Unlike all other known asteroids, which appear simply as tiny points of light, this asteroid, designated P/2013 P5, resembles a rotating lawn sprinkler. Astronomers are puzzled over the asteroid’s unusual appearance.
The geology of Vesta as seen by Dawn appears to contradict the present models for that asteroid’s origin.
The uncertainty of science: The geology of Vesta as seen by Dawn appears to contradict the present models for that asteroid’s origin.
The accumulated evidence from the Chelyabinsk meteorite now suggests the risk of large asteroid impacts might be ten times greater than previously estimated.
The accumulated evidence from the Chelyabinsk meteorite now suggests the risk of large asteroid impacts might be ten times greater than previously estimated.
The Chelyabinsk asteroid had approached Earth from a region of the sky that is inaccessible to ground-based telescopes. In the 6 weeks before the impact, it would have been visible above the horizon only during the daytime, when the sky is too bright to see objects of its size, says Boroviฤka.
โThe residual impact risk โ from asteroids with yet-unknown orbits โ is shifting to small-sized objects,โ says Peter Brown, a planetary scientist at the University of Western Ontario in London, Canada, and an author on the Nature papers.
Of the millions of estimated near-Earth asteroids 10โ20 metres in diameter, only about 500 have been catalogued. Models suggest that an object the size of the Chelyabinsk asteroid hits Earth once every 150 years on average, Brown says. But the number of observed impacts exceeding 1 kiloton of TNT over the past 20 years alone hints at an actual impact risk that may be an order of magnitude larger than previously assumed,
The data also now suggests that the Chelyabinsk asteroid was twice as big as previously thought, and that it had an almost identical orbit to a much larger already known asteroid.
Students crash rockets into the ground on purpose! With video.
Students crash rockets into the ground on purpose! With video.
In what at first glance seems like a terrible sense of direction, in March students from the University of Washington fired rockets from kites and balloons at an altitude of 3,000 ft (914 m) straight into the ground at Black Rock, Nevada: a dry lake bed in the desert 100 mi (160 km) north of Reno. This may seem like the ultimate in larking about, but it’s actually a serious effort to develop new ways of collecting samples from asteroids.