Tag Archive for 'Asteroid'

Tomkins et al. suggest that a large chondrite asteroid had a near miss encounter with Earth 466 million years ago, which caused it to break up as it passed through Earth’s Roche limit.

Earth Had Ring System 466 Million Years Ago, New Research Suggests

Sep 18, 2024 by News Staff

Breakup of an asteroid passing within Earth’s Roche limit likely formed the debris ring during the middle Ordovician period, according to new research...

Distribution of furrows and location of the center of the furrow system shown in the hemisphere that always faces away from Jupiter (top) and the cylindrical projection map of Ganymede (bottom). The gray regions represent geologically young terrain without furrows. Furrows (green lines) exist only on geologically old terrains (black regions). Image credit: Naoyuki Hirata, doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-69914-2.

Ganymede Was Struck by Giant Asteroid 4 Billion Years Ago, New Research Suggests

Sep 3, 2024 by News Staff

Jupiter’s moon Ganymede has an ancient impact structure called a furrow system. This system is the largest impact structure in the outer Solar System,...

Ankylosaurus magniventris, a large armored dinosaur species, witnesses the impact of an asteroid, falling on the Yucatan peninsula 66 million years ago. Image credit: Fabio Manucci.

Dinosaur-Killing Chicxulub Asteroid Came from beyond Jupiter: Study

Aug 16, 2024 by News Staff

The so-called Chicxulub impactor was a carbonaceous-type asteroid that had formed beyond the orbit of Jupiter, according to a new paper published in the...

Jarmak et al. used Webb, shown in the bottom right corner of this illustration, to confirm the presence of hydrated minerals on the surface of Psyche. Image credit: Southwest Research Institute.

Study: Asteroid Psyche Originated beyond Solar System’s Snow Line and Later Migrated to Main Belt

Aug 13, 2024 by News Staff

Planetary scientists using spectral data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have confirmed the detection of hydroxyl molecules on the surface...

Gaia spotted potential moons around 352 asteroids not known to have a companion. Image credit: ESA.

ESA’s Gaia Mission Discovers 352 New Binary Asteroid Candidates

Aug 12, 2024 by News Staff

Binary asteroids have attracted the attention of the scientific community due to their interesting properties and the significant impact they have on our...

Chen et al. show that Beta Pictoris has a dynamic circumstellar environment and that periods of enhanced collisions can create large dust clouds that sweep through the planetary system, increasing the dust accretion onto the giant planets Beta Pictoris b and c. Image credit: Roberto Molar Candanosa / Johns Hopkins University / Lynette Cook / NASA.

Webb Detects Giant Collision in Beta Pictoris System

Jun 12, 2024 by News Staff

Astronomers using the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope have spotted a collision of giant asteroids around Beta Pictoris, the second brightest star...

The stereographic image pairs (a-c), taken by the L’LORRI instrument on NASA’s Lucy spacecraft on November 1, 2023, show the asteroid Dinkinesh. The yellow and rose dots indicate the trough and ridge features, respectively. These images have been sharpened and processed to enhance contrast. The image (d) shows a side view of Dinkinesh and its satellite Selam taken a few minutes after closest approach. Image credit: NASA / GSFC / SwRI / Johns Hopkins APL / NOIRLab.

Asteroid Dinkinesh’s Moon is Contact Binary, Astronomers Say

Jun 11, 2024 by News Staff

Dinkinesh is a small asteroid orbiting the Sun near the inner edge of the main asteroid belt. NASA’s Lucy spacecraft recently revealed the asteroid,...

This Hubble image of the barred spiral galaxy UGC 12158 looks like someone took a white marking pen to it. In reality it is a combination of time exposures of a foreground asteroid moving through Hubble’s field-of-view, photobombing the observation of the galaxy. Several exposures of the galaxy were taken, what is evidence in the dashed pattern. The asteroid appears as a curved trail due to parallax: because Hubble is not stationary, but orbiting Earth, and this gives the illusion that the faint asteroid is swimming along a curved trajectory. The uncharted asteroid is in inside the asteroid belt in our Solar System, and hence is 10 trillion times closer to Hubble than the background galaxy. Image credit: NASA / ESA / Hubble / Pablo García Martín, UAM / Joseph DePasquale, STScI / Alex Filippenko, UC Berkeley.

Astronomers Discover 454 New Asteroids in Main Belt

Apr 19, 2024 by News Staff

A set of 632 main-belt asteroids (178 previously known and 454 unknown objects) has been identified in the archival images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space...

Minor planets with activity discoveries resulting from the Active Asteroids project: (a-f) active asteroids and main-belt comet candidates; (g) an active Centaur; (h-l) active active quasi-Hilda asteroids; (m-t) Jupiter-family comets. Image credit: Chandler et al., 10.3847/1538-3881/ad1de2.

Citizen Science Project Discovers 15 New Active Asteroids

Mar 18, 2024 by Enrico de Lazaro

Active asteroids behave dynamically like asteroids but display comet-like comae. These objects are poorly understood, with fewer than 60 identified to...

The asteroid moonlet Dimorphos as seen by NASA’s DART spacecraft 11 seconds before impact. DART’s on board DRACO imager captured this image from a distance of 68 km (42 miles). This image was the last to contain all of Dimorphos in the field of view. Image credit: NASA / Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory.

Asteroid Moonlet Dimorphos May Have Been Reshaped Following Impact from NASA’s DART Mission

Feb 28, 2024 by News Staff

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission successfully impacted Dimorphos, the natural satellite of the binary near-Earth...

Arredondo et al. looked at four silicate-rich asteroids using the FORCAST instrument on NASA’s SOFIA observatory to isolate the mid-infrared spectral signatures indicative of molecular water on two of them: Iris and Massalia. Image credit: NASA / Carla Thomas / Southwest Research Institute.

SOFIA Detects Molecular Water on Nominally Dry Asteroids

Feb 13, 2024 by News Staff

Using the FORCAST instrument on NASA’s retired Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy (SOFIA), astronomers have obtained mid-infrared spectra...

This image of the asteroid Ryugu was captured by the Optical Navigation Camera - Telescopic (ONC-T) on JAXA’s Hayabusa-2 spacecraft on June 26, 2018, from a distance of 13.7 miles (22 km). Image credit: JAXA / University of Tokyo / Kochi University / Rikkyo University / Nagoya University / Chiba Institute of Technology / Meiji University / Aizu University / AIST.

Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons in Asteroids Predate Our Solar System, New Study Shows

Dec 22, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

Astronomical observations show that polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are abundant and widespread in the interstellar medium. PAH molecules consist...

Psyche’s first images make up this mosaic showing a starfield in the constellation of Pisces. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / ASU.

NASA’s Psyche Spacecraft Beams Back Its First Images

Dec 6, 2023 by News Staff

Already 26 million km (16 million miles) from Earth, NASA’s Psyche spacecraft will arrive at its target asteroid Psyche in 2029. The Psyche team wanted...

This image, captured by the Lucy Long-Range Reconnaissance Imager (L’LORRI) onboard NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, shows the main-belt asteroid Dinkinesh and its moonlet. This image was taken at 12:55 p.m. EDT (16:55 UTC) on November 1, 2023, within a minute of closest approach, from a range of approximately 430 km (270 miles). Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / SwRI / Johns Hopkins APL / NOIRLab.

Lucy Shows Its Flyby Target Dinkinesh is Actually Binary Asteroid

Nov 4, 2023 by News Staff

On November 1, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flew by not just its first asteroid — the small main-belt asteroid (152830) Dinkinesh — but its first...

This painting depicts an asteroid slamming into tropical, shallow seas of the sulfur-rich Yucatan Peninsula in what is today southeast Mexico. The aftermath of this immense asteroid collision, which occurred approximately 65 million years ago, is believed to have caused the extinction of the dinosaurs and many other species on Earth. Shown in this painting are pterodactyls, flying reptiles with wingspans of up to 50 feet, gliding above low tropical clouds. Image credit: Donald E. Davis / NASA.

Study: Asteroid Impact-Generated Dust Played Key Role in Dinosaur-Killing Mass Extinction

Oct 31, 2023 by News Staff

About 66 million years ago, a massive asteroid crashed into Earth near the site of the small town of Chicxulub in what is now Mexico. The impact eradicated...

This false-color image shows the dwarf planet Ceres. Image credit: NASA / JPL-Caltech / UCLA / MPS / DLR / IDA.

Planetary Researchers Probe Origin of Complex Organics on Ceres

Oct 17, 2023 by News Staff

How aliphatic organic compounds originated on the dwarf planet Ceres has been the subject of intensive research since their discovery by NASA’s Dawn...

A view of the outside of the OSIRIS-REx sample collector. Sample material from asteroid Bennu can be seen on the middle right. Image credit: NASA / Erika Blumenfeld / Joseph Aebersold.

Sample Material from Asteroid Bennu Contains Carbon and Water, NASA Scientists Say

Oct 11, 2023 by News Staff

The sample was collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security, Regolith Explorer) spacecraft...

The sample return capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission is seen shortly after touching down in the desert, September 24, 2023, at the Department of Defense’s Utah Test and Training Range. Image credit: NASA / Keegan Barber.

Sample Return Capsule from NASA’s OSIRIS-Rex Mission Lands Successfully in Utah

Sep 25, 2023 by News Staff

OSIRIS-Rex’s capsule containing precious samples from the near-Earth asteroid (101955) Bennu landed safely in a targeted area of the Department of Defense’s...

This image of the main-belt asteroid Dinkinesh was captured by NASA’s Lucy spacecraft on September 5, 2023. The brightest star in this field of view is HD 34258, a 7.6 magnitude star in the constellation of Auriga that is too dim to be seen by the naked eye from Earth. At this distance, Dinkinesh is only 19 magnitude, about 150,000 times fainter than that star. Image credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center / SwRI / Johns Hopkins APL.

Lucy Sends Back Its First Images of Main-Belt Asteroid Dinkinesh

Sep 12, 2023 by Enrico de Lazaro

The small main-belt asteroid (152830) Dinkinesh was recently added to NASA’s Lucy mission and will be the first fly-by target on November 1, 2023. This...

This Hubble image of Dimorphos was taken on December 19, 2022, nearly four months after the asteroid was impacted by NASA’s DART mission. Dimorphos has a blue dust tail extending diagonally to the upper right. A cluster of blue dots surrounds the asteroid. These are boulders that were knocked off the asteroid. Image credit: NASA / ESA / D. Jewitt, UCLA.

Hubble Spots Swarm of Boulders around Asteroid Dimorphos

Jul 24, 2023 by News Staff

On September 26, 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) intentionally slammed into the 160-m-wide asteroid moonlet Dimorphos — which...

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