You might think lots of meteorites ultimately come from comets. Turns out, you’d be wrong, according to a new study that tracked meteors hurtling through the sky to find out where they came from.
A tiny speck of asteroid dust, circled, can only be manipulated by a glass needle.
ISAS JAXA
A recent study shows that the Earth’s water could come directly from the oxygen and hydrogen present in the rocks that formed it, and not from a late supply by asteroids.
Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland e Tanya Hill, Museums Victoria Research Institute
A poor start for meteor showers in 2021 but things get better with a possible spectacular surprise later in the year. Here’s your guide on when and where to look to catch nature’s fireworks.
Artist impression of Hayabusa 2 approaching asteroid Ryugu.
Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)/wikipedia
Paleontologists have discovered fossil remains belonging to an enormous ‘toothed’ bird that lived for a period of about 60 million years after dinosaurs.
Artist’s concept of the OSIRIS REx spacecraft collecting material from Bennu.
NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center
Bennu will tell us about our own origins as much as about the origin of asteroid Bennu.
This artist’s rendering shows OSIRIS-REx spacecraft descending toward asteroid Bennu to collect a sample of the asteroid’s surface.
NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona
OSIRIS-REx will touch down on asteroid Bennu, collect a sample of the dust and begin its journey back to Earth, where scientists will study it, hoping to learn secrets of the solar system’s origin.
Following on from the 2019 International Year of Indigenous Languages, 2020 has seen 5 asteroids given new names recognising the contribution of illustrious Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.
Asteroid 2018 VP1 itself is too small and far away to see clearly, so here’s an artist’s impression of a near-Earth object.
NASA / JPL-Caltech
A small asteroid will cross Earth’s orbit on November 2. Scientists aren’t sure if the two will collide – but even if they do, there’s still no cause for alarm.
Artist’s rendition of NASA’s 2020 Mars rover collecting rocks with its robotic arm.
NASA
Martian meteorites allow scientists here on Earth to decode that planet’s geology, more than a decade before the first missions are scheduled to bring rocks back home from Mars.
Asteroid Ryugu photographed from a distance of about 12 miles (20 kilometers) looks just gray and bland, but a close-up provides more color.
JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University, Rikkyo University, Nagoya University, Chiba Institute of Technology, Meiji University, University of Aizu and AIST
It is a pretty spectacular achievement to not only rendezvous with an asteroid as it is whizzing around the Sun but also collect a sample. Here’s what the researchers learned.