Latest Asteroids Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Deep Space Industries (DSI) announced on Tuesday that it plans to send a fleet of asteroid-prospecting spacecraft out into the solar system. These "FireFly" spacecraft use low-cost components and get discounted delivery to space by ride-sharing on the launch of larger satellites. “This is the first commercial campaign to explore the small asteroids that pass by Earth,” Deep Space Chairman Rick Tumlinson said in a statement....
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online One mission aims to take a Bruce Willis approach in the movie Armageddon, by deflecting any future asteroids that might be headed towards Earth. The European Space Agency is looking for research ideas to help guide the development of an asteroid deflection mission study. ESA is asking for concepts based on both ground- and space-based investigations that could improve the understanding of the physics of very high-speed collisions...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online New research reinforces the idea that the asteroid Vesta may actually have more of a history to it than just being a floating space rock. Scientists analyzed data taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft and found that the enormous troughs that reach across the asteroid may be faults that formed when another asteroid ran into Vesta's south pole. This could indicate that Vesta has a layered interior, a quality shared by planets and large moons....
Michael Harper for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online In either an attempt to drum up some excitement for Internet Explorer, new Microsoft tablets and Windows 8 or to simply revisit some beautiful nostalgia, Atari and Microsoft last week launched Atari Arcade, a free, HTML5-based way to play your favorite 80s-era pixelated video games. Now, 8 classic video games, including Asteroids, Centipede, Combat, Lunar Lander, Missile Command, Pong, Yars Revenge and Super Breakout are available...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com An asteroid about the size of a football stadium may slightly have a chance of impacting Earth in 2040, but new estimates show it's hardly a threat. The space rock, measuring about 460-feet in size, has a likelihood of missing Earth greater than 99 percent, according to the recent findings by scientists at a May 29 workshop at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "While there is general consensus there is only a very small chance that we could be dealing...
WASHINGTON, June 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Researchers anticipate that asteroid 2011 AG5, discovered in January 2011, will fly safely past and not impact Earth in 2040. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Current findings and analysis data were reported at a May 29 workshop at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., attended by scientists and engineers from around the world. Discussions focused on observations of potentially...
After successfully completing nearly five months scrutinizing the giant asteroid Vesta at its lowest orbit altitude, NASA's Dawn spacecraft will begin its final major science data-gathering phase at Vesta on June 15, at an average altitude of 420 miles (680 kilometers) above the surface. Over the past six weeks, Dawn has been gently spiraling up from its lowest orbit - 130 miles, or 210 kilometers, above the surface - to the final planned science orbit, known as high-altitude mapping orbit...
[ Watch the Video ] A new video from NASA's Dawn mission reveals the dappled, variegated surface of the giant asteroid Vesta. The animation drapes high-resolution false color images over a 3-D model of the Vesta terrain constructed from Dawn's observations. This visualization enables a detailed view of the variation in the material properties of Vesta in the context of its topography. The colors were chosen to highlight differences in surface composition that are too subtle for the...
WASHINGTON, May 10, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- NASA's Dawn spacecraft has provided researchers with the first orbital analysis of the giant asteroid Vesta, yielding new insights into its creation and relation to the terrestrial planets and Earth's moon. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Vesta now has been revealed as a special fossil of the early solar system with a more varied, diverse surface than originally thought. Scientists have confirmed a...
NASA will host a news conference on Thursday, May 10, at 2 p.m. EDT to present a new analysis of the giant asteroid Vesta using data from the agency’s Dawn spacecraft. The event will be held in the James E. Webb Auditorium at NASA Headquarters located at 300 E St. SW in Washington. The event will be broadcast live on NASA Television and streamed on the agency’s website. The journal Science has embargoed the findings prior to the news conference. The panelists for the briefing are:...
Latest Asteroids Reference Libraries
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...
Asteroid Belt -- The Asteroid belt is a region of the solar system falling roughly between the planets Mars and Jupiter where the greatest concentration of asteroid orbits can be found. It is believed that, during the first million years of the solar system history, planets formed by accretion of planetesimals. Ripetute collisions led to the familiar rocky planets and to the gas giant's cores. However, in this zone of the system the strong gravity of Jupiter inhibited the final stages...
Near-Earth Asteroid -- Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) are asteroids whose orbit intersects Earth's orbit and which may therefore pose a collision danger, as well as being most easily accessible for spacecraft from Earth. In fact, some near-Earth asteroids can be reached with much less ΔV than the Moon. The most famous near-Earth asteroid is 433 Eros that was visited by NASA's Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous probe. A few hundred such near-Earth asteroids are known, ranging in size up...
