Tag: asteroid
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Don’t panic: Huge, headline-grabbing asteroid has no chance of hitting us anytime soon
An artist’s conception shows asteroids zipping past Earth. (NASA Illustration) The bad news is that an asteroid of city-killing proportions is heading in our direction, but the good news is that it’ll miss us on Saturday night by 3.2 million miles. The space rock, known as 2002 NN4, generated enough scary headlines that NASA felt…
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After visiting asteroid, Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe heads back to Earth with samples
An image from Hayabusa 2’s camera shows the half-mile-wide, diamond-shaped asteroid known as Ryugu receding in the metaphorical rear-view mirror. (JAXA, Chiba Institute of Technology and Collaborators) Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft and its science team bid a bittersweet farewell to the asteroid Ryugu, 180 million miles from Earth, and began the months-long return trip to…
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One year after Planetary Resources faded into history, space mining retains its appeal
An artist’s conception shows Planetary Resources’ Arkyd 300 spacecraft prospecting amid a cluster of asteroids. (Planetary Resources Illustration) It’s been a year since the Redmond, Wash.-based asteroid mining venture known as Planetary Resources was acquired by ConsenSys and pivoted to blockchain projects in space — but the idea of mining space resources still resonates among…
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NASA science chief says NEO Surveillance Mission will seek out threatening asteroids
The NEO Surveillance Mission’s space telescope would take advantage of technologies developed for NEOCam, the proposed spacecraft shown in this artist’s conception. (IPAC / Caltech Illustration) The head of NASA’s science operations says the space agency intends to develop a new space-based infrared telescope to hunt down near-Earth objects — not primarily for science’s sake,…
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Surprise! NASA’s OSIRIS-REx probe catches asteroid spewing bits into space
This view of asteroid Bennu ejecting particles from its surface on Jan. 19 was created by combining two images taken by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. Other image processing techniques were applied, such as cropping and adjusting the brightness and contrast of each image. (NASA / Goddard / Univ. of Arizona / Lockheed Martin Photo) NASA’s OSIRIS-REx…
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Watch Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe blast away a blizzard of rocks from an asteroid
If there was ever any doubt that Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft was able to get access to samples from an asteroid called Ryugu last month, a video released today should put those doubts to rest. The black-and-white video clip, shot by the probe’s CAM-H monitoring camera, shows the sampling horn being lowered to the sunlit…
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Japan’s Hayabusa 2 team says spacecraft touches down on asteroid to grab sample
An image captured just after the Hayabusa 2’s touchdown on asteroid Ryugu shows the H-shaped shadow of the spacecraft and its solar panels. The dark splotch represents material disturbed by the sample collection operation. (JAXA Photo via Twitter) Japan’s Hayabusa 2 spacecraft successfully touched down today on asteroid Ryugu, more than 200 million miles from…
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Bradford Space Group buys Deep Space Industries, shifting focus from asteroid mining to propulsion
An artist’s conception shows a nanosatellite equipped with Deep Space Industries’ non-toxic, water-based Comet thruster system. (DSI / BSI Illustration) Bradford Space Group says it’s acquired California-based Deep Space Industries, which means that both of the ventures that were created to mine asteroids have now been bought up to focus on different priorities. The other…
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OSIRIS-REx probe goes into close orbit around asteroid Bennu and sets a record
An artist’s conception shows the OSIRIS-REx probe circling in to enter a close-in orbit around asteroid Bennu. (Univ. of Arizona / NASA Graphic) NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft today maneuvered into an orbit that takes it within 4,000 feet of the surface of Bennu, a diamond-shaped asteroid that’s 70 million miles from Earth. The orbit sets a…
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That was fast: OSIRIS-REx probe detects water on asteroid Bennu during approach
This mosaic image of the asteroid Bennu is composed of 12 PolyCam images collected on Dec. 2 by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft from a range of 15 miles. A prominent boulder can be seen at lower right. (NASA / Goddard / University of Arizona Photo) Just one week after the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft’s official arrival at the…