A Japanese spacecraft is expected to reach Martian orbit in 2025 to collect material from the surface of the moon Phobos before returning to Earth by 2029.
Upcoming NASA missions will help scientists understand the composition of asteroids – which could inform companies one day hoping to commercially mine asteroids.
Controlled experiments are impossible in astronomy, as are direct measurements of physical properties of objects outside our solar system. So how do astronomers know so much about them?
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission has delivered pieces of asteroid Bennu, which scientists hope will offer a window into the early era of the Solar System billions of years ago.
A new study of the meteorite Erg Chech 002 makes it one of the most precisely dated space objects and changes our understanding of how elements were spread around the cloud of dust that formed the Sun and planets.
Liftoff to the distant asteroid is scheduled for Oct. 5, 2023 – the beginning of a six-year journey to one of the most unusual objects in the solar system.