Latest Asteroid Stories
On the heels of the return to Earth of a pair of satellites -- NASA's Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS) and the German-built Röntgensatellit (ROSAT) -- over the past two months comes a report of another object set to collide with our planet. Only this one is a 20 million ton asteroid that is currently heading towards us at 23,000 miles per hour, and could collide with our planet in approximately 25 years, Alex Hannaford of the Telegraph wrote on Sunday. The asteroid in question,...
ESA's Rosetta spacecraft has revealed asteroid Lutetia to be a primitive body, left over as the planets were forming in our Solar System. Results from Rosetta's fleeting flyby also suggest that this mini-world tried to grow a metal heart. Rosetta flew past Lutetia on 10 July 2010 at a speed of 54 000 km/hr and a closest distance of 3170 km. At the time, the 130 km-long asteroid was the largest encountered by a spacecraft. Since then, scientists have been analyzing the data taken during the...
NASA scientists will be tracking asteroid 2005 YU55 with antennas of the agency's Deep Space Network at Goldstone, Calif., as the space rock safely flies past Earth slightly closer than the moon's orbit on Nov. 8. Scientists are treating the flyby of the 1,300-foot-wide (400-meter) asteroid as a science target of opportunity - allowing instruments on "spacecraft Earth" to scan it during the close pass. Tracking of the aircraft carrier-sized asteroid will begin at 9:30 a.m. local time (PDT)...
Comet Elenin is no more. Latest indications are this relatively small comet has broken into even smaller, even less significant, chunks of dust and ice. This trail of piffling particles will remain on the same path as the original comet, completing its unexceptional swing through the inner solar system this fall. "Elenin did as new comets passing close by the sun do about two percent of the time: It broke apart," said Don Yeomans of NASA's Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA's Jet...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 20, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Using data from the Herschel Space Observatory, astronomers have detected for the first time cold water vapor enveloping a dusty disk around a young star. The findings suggest that this disk, which is poised to develop into a solar system, contains great quantities of water, suggesting that water-covered planets like Earth may be common in the universe. Herschel is a European Space Agency mission with important NASA contributions. (Logo:...
For the first time, observations coordinated by ESA's space hazards team have found an asteroid that comes close enough to Earth to pose an impact threat. The space rock was found by amateur astronomers, highlighting the value of 'crowd-sourcing' to science and planetary defense. The discovery of asteroid 2011 SF108 was made by the volunteer Teide Observatory Tenerife Asteroid Survey (TOTAS) team during an observation slot sponsored by ESA's Space Situational Awareness (SSA) program in...
A remarkable discovery was made by astronomers on 12 December 2010: an asteroid named Scheila had changed its appearance and looked more like a comet, complete with bright tail. An international team of scientists have used innovative modeling techniques to support the idea that the cause was another object impacting Scheila, ejecting material from the asteroid. The lead scientist of this study, Fernando Moreno of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía in Granada, Spain, presented the...
Analysis of fragments of the Almahata Sitta meteorite, which landed in Sudan in 2008, has shown that the parent asteroid was probably formed through collisions of three different types of asteroids. The meteorites are of particular interest because they contain material both primitive and evolved types of asteroids. The results will be presented at the EPSC-DPS Joint Meeting 2011 in Nantes, France, by Dr Julie Gayon-Markt on Friday 7th October. The meteorites are fragments of the...
Since the discovery of its two moons, the triple asteroid Minerva has been the focus of space and ground-based telescope studies that have attempted to unravel the secrets of this intriguing system. A multiple-telescope campaign has now revealed that Minerva is unusually round for an asteroid, and has a possibly unique structure. The campaign to “weigh” the asteroid and derive its density and other characteristics was undertaken by an international team of planetary astronomers led...
WASHINGTON, Oct. 5, 2011 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Astronomers have found a new cosmic source for the same kind of water that appeared on Earth billions of years ago and created the oceans. The findings may help explain how Earth's surface ended up covered in water. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) New measurements from the Herschel Space Observatory show that comet Hartley 2, which comes from the distant Kuiper Belt, contains water with the same chemical...
Latest Asteroid Reference Libraries
Johann Daniel Titius was born on January 2, 1729 in Konitz, Royal Prussia. He was a professor at Wittenberg. He is most famous for the Titius-Bode law, which helped him find the existence of a minor planet at 2.8 AU from the sun in 1766. The planet was later named Ceres. Titius died in Wittenberg on December 11, 1796. To his honor, the Titius asteroid in 1998 and the Titius lunar crater are named after him.
Lagrangian Point -- In Lagrangian mechanics, a Lagrangian point (or L-point) is one of five positions in space where the gravitational fields of two bodies of substantial but differing mass combine to form a point at which a third body of negligible mass would be stationary relative to the two bodies. Bodies at the L-point will not move relative to the parent bodies if they are not perturbed by other gravitational forces. They are sometimes also referred to as libration points. The...
Planet -- A planet is a body of considerable mass that orbits a star and that doesn't produce energy through nuclear fusion. Until recently, only nine were known (all of them in our own Solar system). As of the end of 2002 over 100 are known, with all of the new discoveries being extrasolar planets. Astronomers often call asteroids minor planets, and call the larger planetary bodies (those which are commonly called planets) major planets. Planets within the solar system can be...
Asteroid -- An asteroid, also called a minor planet or planetoid, is a member of a group of small, planet-like bodies that are part of our solar system. They are believed to be remnants of the interstellar clouds, nebula, that were not incorporated into planets during the formation of the solar system. The largest asteroid in the inner solar system is Ceres with a diameter of 1003 km. It also was the first to be discovered, by Giuseppe Piazzi on January 1, 1801. Nowadays, over 9000...
The Solar System refers to the area in space that is dominated by our own Sun. It is comprised of the Sun and its associated astronomical objects that are held in its gravitational orbit. The Solar System was formed as a result of the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The mass of this system is located almost entirely in the Sun. Apart from the Sun, a high percentage of the remainder of the system’s mass is located in the eight solitary planets that...
![Trojan Colors Revealed (Artist\](/media/gallery/wide-field-infrared-survey-explorer-wise/thumbs/thumbs_697015main_pia16211_full.jpg "Trojan Colors Revealed (Artist\")
![Herschel\](/media/gallery/herschel/thumbs/thumbs_herschel_s_three-colour_view_of_asteroid_apophis.jpg "Herschel\")
