Asteroids
A 3U CubeSat Could Collect Data During an Asteroid Flyby
One of the great things about CubeSat designs is that they constrain the engineers who design them. Constraints are a…
Could We Use An Asteroid to Shield Astronauts On Their Way to Mars?
Radiation is a primary concern for long-duration human spaceflight, such as the planned trips to Mars, which are the stated…
Could Primordial Black Holes Be Hiding in Plain Sight?
Are Primordial Black Holes real? They could've formed in the unusual physics that dominated the Universe shortly after the Big…
How Much Are Asteroids Really Worth?
Popular media love talking about asteroid mining using big numbers. Many articles talk about a mission to Psyche, the largest…
The Best Way to Find Planet Nine Might Be Hundreds of Tiny Telescopes
Although the outer Solar System is mostly empty, there are icy objects drifting within the very limits of detection by…
Did Some of Earth’s Water Come from the Solar Wind?
The source of Earth's water is an enduring mystery that extends to exoplanets and the notion of habitability. In broad…
There Might Be Water on the Surface of the Metal Asteroid Psyche
While a NASA probe heads for an asteroid known as Psyche, telescopes have been probing it to prepare for the…
Swarming Satellites Could Autonomous Characterize an Asteroid
An asteroid's size, shape, and rotational speed are clues to its internal properties and potential resources for mining operations. However,…
Swarms of Orbiting Sensors Could Map An Asteroid’s Surface
It seems like every month, a new story appears announcing the discovery of thousands of new asteroids. Tracking these small…
Dinkinesh's Moonlet is Only 2-3 Million Years Old
Last November, NASA's Lucy mission conducted a flyby of the asteroid Dinkinish, one of the Main Belt asteroids it will…