The Japanese government has given the final go-ahead for a new Hayabusa asteroid sample return mission, set for launch in 2014.
New computer models suggest that roughly half of the asteroid Vesta is cold enough for ice to survive below the surface.
This year’s hunt for meteorites in Antarctica bagged more than 300.
A meteorite that fell to Earth last July in Morocco has proven to be a rare chunk of Mars.
The Quadrantids meteor shower is on for tonight.
On January 2, 2012, an asteroid is going to transit across the face of Betelgeuse. And if you live in Europe, own a very sensitive telescope, look close and don’t blink, you might be able to see it!
This is all according to a preprint paper published today on the Los Alamos astro-ph preprint website, written by scientist Costantino Sigismondi of the Galileo Ferraris Institute and International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics in Rome. You can download the paper here [pdf].
The transit itself will only last 3.6 seconds, and will only be visible along a narrow swath crossing southern India and moving across the Middle East, through parts of Italy, France, and the southwestern most tips of England and Ireland. A map of this path is below the fold.
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Dawn has sent back its first images of Vesta from low orbit. I like this one best:
Using the spacecraft’s last drops of fuel, engineers are attempting to aim Deep Impact to a 2020 rendezvous with near Earth asteroid 2002 GT.
Dawn has now lowered its orbit to an average elevation of 130 miles above the asteroid Vesta.
Expect lots of close-up images in the weeks to come.
Tonight’s press conference at the American Geophysical Union conference focused on the latest results from Dawn, orbiting the giant asteroid Vesta. Or to put it as scientist Vishnu Reddy put it, “Vesta is the most colorful asteroid in the solar system.”
At least, in geological terms. To our human eye the asteroid wouldn’t be so spectacular. However, the false color images released by the scientists show the global geological diversity of Vesta. From the press release:
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Dawn soars over Vesta in 3D.
