Tag: asteroid
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
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…
-
OSIRIS-REx probe reaches asteroid Bennu for close-up survey and sample return
An image taken by the OSIRIS-REx probe last month shows the asteroid Bennu from a distance of about 40 miles. (NASA / Goddard / Univ. of Arizona Photo) NASA’s OSIRIS-REx today made its official rendezvous with a promising and potentially perilous asteroid named Bennu, after two years of closing in on it. “We have arrived,”…
-
See a diamond-shaped asteroid from all sides, courtesy of OSIRIS-REx mission
Two years after its launch, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is closing in on a near-Earth asteroid named Bennu and sending back pictures that provide one gem of a 360-degree view. Last Friday, OSIRIS-REx captured imagery over the course of a four-hour, 11-minute period to take in a full rotation of the diamond-shaped space rock from a…
-
NASA’s Dawn probe falls silent, ending mission to mysterious dwarf planet Ceres
This photo of Ceres and the bright regions in Occator Crater was one of the last views NASA’s Dawn spacecraft transmitted before it completed its mission. This view, which faces south, was captured on Sept. 1 from an altitude of 2,340 miles as the spacecraft was ascending in its elliptical orbit. (NASA / JPL-Caltech /…
-
Why in the universe is a blockchain company buying the assets of a formerly high-flying asteroid miner?
Planetary Resources President and CEO Chris Lewicki talks about the company’s satellite ambitions at the 2014 GeekWire Summit. (GeekWire Photo) After months of financial uncertainty, the Planetary Resources asteroid-mining venture says its assets have been purchased by the Brooklyn-based ConsenSys blockchain venture. In a news release, Planetary Resources said its CEO and president, Chris Lewicki,…
-
MASCOT lander sends back otherworldly views of asteroid Ryugu’s rugged terrain
The MASCOT lander’s view of asteroid Ryugu’s lumpy, bumpy surface was displayed during a post-mission news conference. Click on the image for more from German science writer Daniel Fischer’s Skyweek 2.0 website. (DLR Photo / Processed by Daniel Fischer) Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe and the German-French MASCOT lander have teamed up to send back amazing…
-
Check out close-up views of asteroid (plus a movie) from Japan’s Hayabusa 2 mission
This image of the asteroid Ryugo was captured by the Hayabusa 2 probe’s ONC-T camera at an altitude of about 64 meters (210 feet). Image was taken on Sept. 21. A large boulder is at bottom left, along with a scale bar indicating the length of 1 meter. (Credit: JAXA, University of Tokyo, Kochi University,…