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Articles on Asteroids

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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

NASA’s OSIRIS-REx will land on an asteroid to bring home rocks and dust – if it can avoid Mt. Doom

Elizabeth Cantwell, 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.
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

Asteroid 2018 VP₁ may be heading for Earth. But there’s no need to worry

Jonti Horner, University of Southern Queensland

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

Meteorites from Mars contain clues about the red planet’s geology

Arya Udry, University of Nevada, Las Vegas

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

Touching the asteroid Ryugu revealed secrets of its surface and changing orbit

Paul K. Byrne, North Carolina State University

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.
The ancient landscape at Yarrabubba preserves traces of the world’s oldest known asteroid impact. Shutterstock

We found the world’s oldest asteroid strike in Western Australia. It might have triggered a global thaw

Aaron J. Cavosie, Curtin University; Chris Kirkland, Curtin University; Nick Timms, Curtin University; Thomas Davison, Imperial College London, and Timmons Erickson, Curtin University

The Yarrabubba asteroid landed 2.2 billion years ago. Around the same time, the icy Earth went through a big thaw.
In 2015, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft looked back toward the sun and captured this near-sunset view of the rugged, icy mountains and flat ice plains extending to Pluto’s horizon. NASA/JHUAPL/SwRI

Planetary confusion – why astronomers keep changing what it means to be a planet

Christopher Palma, Penn State

Many people are still upset that Pluto was demoted from being a planet. But definitions of various celestial objects are fairly fluid. So whether it is an asteroid or moon or planet is up for debate.
Near-Earth asteroids such as Bennu, and 2019 OK which passed close to Earth this week, pose a potential threat to our planet. NASA

An asteroid just buzzed past Earth, and we barely noticed in time

Michael J. I. Brown, Monash University

A 100-metre-wide asteroid passed just 70,000km from Earth on Thursday, and we had little warning it was about to happen. What threat is posed by asteroids and how do we find them?
A collection of raw Libyan desert glass. Linnas/Shutterstock

How we solved the mystery of Libyan desert glass

Aaron J. Cavosie, Curtin University

The origin of Libyan desert glass found scattered in an Egyptian desert has puzzled scientists for years. But a new look at the glass structure reveals its meteoric formation.

Related Topics

  1. Astronomy
  2. Comets
  3. Dinosaurs
  4. Earth
  5. Geology
  6. Meteor
  7. Meteorites
  8. NASA
  9. Solar system
  10. Space

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