Asteroids Archives

July 19, 2022July 19, 2022 by Evan Gough

We’ll be Building Self-Replicating Probes to Explore the Milky Way Sooner Than you Think. Why Haven’t ETIs?

An early NASA concept of an interstellar space probe. Credit: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory

The future can arrive in sudden bursts. What seems a long way off can suddenly jump into view, especially when technology is involved. That might be true of self-replicating machines. Will we combine 3D printing with in-situ resource utilization to build self-replicating space probes?

One aerospace engineer with expertise in space robotics thinks it could happen sooner rather than later. And that has implications for SETI.

July 18, 2022July 18, 2022 by Evan Gough

Two Spacecraft Could Work Together to Capture an Asteroid and Bring it Close to Earth for Mining

Mining asteroids might be necessary for humanity to expand into the Solar System. But what effect would asteroid mining have on the world's economy? Credit: ESA.

Humanity seems destined to expand into the Solar System. What exactly that looks like, and how difficult and tumultuous the endeavour might be, is wide open to speculation. But there are some undeniable facts attached to the prospect.

We need materials to build infrastructure, and getting it all into space from Earth is not realistic. (Be quiet, space elevator people.)

July 15, 2022July 15, 2022 by Nancy Atkinson

JWST Also Looked Inside the Solar System, at Jupiter and its Moons

Jupiter, center, and its moon Europa, left, are seen through the James Webb Space Telescope’s NIRCam instrument 2.12 micron filter. Credits: NASA, ESA, CSA, and B. Holler and J. Stansberry (STScI)

After the ‘big reveal’ earlier this week of the James Webb Space Telescope’s first full color images and spectra of the universe, the science team has now released data from closer to home. One stunning shot includes Jupiter and its moons, and there are also data from several asteroids. These latest data are actually just engineering images, designed to test JWST’s ability to track solar system targets, as well as test out how the team can produce images from the data. The quality and detail in these test images have excited the mission scientists.

July 11, 2022July 11, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

The Most Threatening Asteroid Just got Downgraded to “Harmless”. No Impact in 2052

It’s comforting to know that there are people who are literally paid to watch the night sky to ensure that at least we’ll be informed if an asteroid will hit the Earth. Technology and near-Earth surveys have become advanced enough that the likelihood of a planet-killer-sized asteroid coming out of nowhere, as is so prevalent in modern media depictions, is extremely unlikely. Even smaller ones, which would only wipe out a city or part of a continent, get enough attention to tell if they pose a threat or not. And in advance of Asteroid Day 2022, which happened on June 30th, ESA is proud to announce they were able to remove one of the most threatening asteroids from their potential impact list.

June 21, 2022June 21, 2022 by Evan Gough

Could We Use Mars as a Base for Asteroid Mining?

A composite image of Mars and its two moons, Phobos (foreground) and Deimos (background). Credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

The earliest mention of asteroid mining might be in a story from 1898 titled “Edison’s Conquest of Mars,” by Garrett Serviss. In that story, Martians attack Earth, killing tens of thousands and destroying New York City. Earth retaliates and sends an armada to Mars. While travelling, the armada comes across an asteroid that the Martians are mining. The asteroid is a rubble pile of gold nuggets.

A conversation breaks out among the crew.

“Phew! Won’t we be rich?” exclaimed a voice.

“How are we going to dig it and get it back to earth?” asked another.

“Carry it in your pockets,” said one.

“No need of staking claims here,” remarked another. “There is enough for everybody.”

Their conversation was a prescient hint of things to come.

June 20, 2022June 20, 2022 by Matt Williams

Samples of Asteroid Ryugu Contain More Than 20 Amino Acids

Artist's impression of the Hayabusa2 spacecraft touching down on the surface of the asteroid Ryugu. Credit: JAXA/Akihiro Ikeshita?

In 2014, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) dispatched its Hayabusa2 spacecraft to rendezvous with 162173 Ryugu, a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) that periodically passes close to Earth. In 2018, this sample-return mission reached Ryugu and spent the next year and a half studying its surface and obtaining samples from its surface and subsurface. By 2020, these samples made it back to Earth, where scientists began analyzing them in the hopes of learning more about the early history of the Solar System and answering key questions about the origins of life.

Earlier this year, the first results of the analysis showed that Ryugu is (as expected) rich in carbon, organic molecules, and volatiles (like water) and hinted at the possibility that it was once a comet. Based on a more recent analysis, eight teams of Japanese researchers (including one from JAXA) recently announced that Ryugu carries strains of no less than 20 different amino acids -the building blocks of DNA and life itself! These findings could provide new insight into how life is distributed throughout the cosmos and could mean that it is more common than previously thought.

June 17, 2022June 17, 2022 by Evan Gough

This is What the Metal Asteroid Psyche Might Look Like

Asteroid Psyche's varied surface suggests a dynamic history, which could include metallic eruptions, asteroid-shaking impacts, and a lost rocky mantle. Image Credit: Screenshot courtesy of NASA

If you wanted to do a forensic study of the Solar System, you might head for the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. That’s where you can find ancient rocks from the Solar System’s early days. Out there in the cold vacuum of space, far from the Sun, asteroids are largely untouched by space weathering. Space scientists sometimes refer to asteroids—and their meteorite fragments that fall to Earth—as time capsules because of the evidence they hold.

The asteroid Psyche is especially interesting, and NASA is sending a mission to investigate the unusual chunk of rock. In advance of that mission, a team of researchers combined observations of Psyche from an array of telescopes and constructed a map of the asteroid’s surface.

June 6, 2022June 6, 2022 by Matt Williams

Astronomers Just Practiced What Would Happen if a Potentially Dangerous Asteroid was Detected

Artist's impression of a Near-Earth Asteroid passing by Earth. Credit: ESA

In and around our planet, there are thousands of comets and asteroids known as Near-Earth Objects (NEOs). Multiple space agencies and government affiliates are responsible for tracking them, especially those known as Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHA). These objects are so-designated because they will cross Earth’s orbit and may even collide with it someday. Considering how impacts in the past have caused mass extinctions (like the Chicxulub Impact Event that killed the dinosaurs), future impacts are something we would like to avoid!

Monitoring PHAs is a huge responsibility that requires a worldwide effort, including tracking, alerts, and disaster preparedness. Last year, over 100 participants from 18 countries (including NASA scientists and the NEOWISE mission) conducted an international exercise that simulated an encounter with an asteroid that made a close flyby to Earth. As NASA revealed in a recently-released study, the exercise was a complete success. The lessons learned could help avert real impacts in the near future or significantly limit the devastation one could cause.

May 18, 2022May 18, 2022 by Evan Gough

Ceres Probably Formed Farther out in the Solar System and Migrated Inward

This image of Ceres was taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft on May 7, 2015, from a distance of 8,400 miles (13,600 kilometers). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA

When Sicilian astronomer Giuseppe Piazzi spotted Ceres in 1801, he thought it was a planet. Astronomers didn’t know about asteroids at that time. Now we know there’s an enormous quantity of them, primarily residing in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Ceres is about 1,000 km in diameter and accounts for a third of the mass in the main asteroid belt. It dwarfs most of the other bodies in the belt. Now we know that it’s a planet—albeit a dwarf one—even though its neighbours are mostly asteroids.

But what’s a dwarf planet doing in the asteroid belt?

May 16, 2022May 16, 2022 by Evan Gough

Scouring Through old Hubble Images Turned up 1,000 new Asteroids

The curved streaks in this Hubble image are asteroids, and some of them are previously unknown. Image Credit: NASA/ESA/Hubble

Researchers have found over 1,700 asteroid trails in archived Hubble data from the last 20 years. While many of the asteroids are previously known, more than 1,000 are not. What good are another 1,000 asteroids? Like all asteroids, they could hold valuable clues to the Solar System’s history.