Asteroid Vesta is the second largest asteroid in our solar system. With a diameter of about 330 miles, it orbits the sun between the planets Mars and Jupiter. Asteroids have long played a role in popular fascination with space. “Marooned off Vesta” was the first story published by American writer Isaac Asimov, the third story […]
Monthly Archives: August 2021
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Aug
An astronomer at the Carnegie Institution for Science has just discovered a new asteroid, and it’s the fastest orbiting asteroid in our solar system, but speed is just one of the weird attributes of space rock. Unexplored space: Astronomers are trying to keep track of nearby asteroids so that we can avoid collisions in space […]
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Artist’s concept of transneptunian objects in the outer solar system. They are generally much redder than the asteroids in the main asteroid belt because they have more complex organic materials covering their surface. Could the 2 reddest asteroids in the main asteroid belt – named 203 Pompeja and 269 Justitia – come from beyond Neptune’s […]
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Do you want to be the first person in 175 years to discover a new planet in our solar system? Just follow the map. Well that’s not all this easy. You will need a huge telescope, a lot of time, and at least some understanding of what you are looking for and why. Let me […]
Solar system
study: Interstellar visitors outnumber solar system objects in the Oort cloud | Astronomy
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The recent detection of 2I / Borisov, the first known interstellar comet to visit our solar system, implies that interstellar objects outnumber non-interstellar objects in the Oort cloud, while the reverse is true near the Sun in due to the stronger gravitational focus of the limits. objects, according to a new article by astronomers Amir […]
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In the past four years, astronomers have spotted two visitors to the solar system from elsewhere in the galaxy. Both have provided an abundance of data that will be studied for many years to come – and have left scientists wanting more. A new article argues that one of those guests, Comet Borisov, represents a […]
22
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Aug
The most recent NASA asteroid data paints a grim picture. There are over 25,000 asteroids circling the solar system like a huge pack of hungry wolves, and over 9,000 of them are listed as near-Earth objects. But these are only the ones we know of, as there are potentially 15,000 more, yet to be discovered, […]
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Carolyn Shoemaker, one of America’s greatest female astronomers, has passed away. Remarkably, she ** started ** her astronomical career in 1980, at age 51! In the 1980s and 1990s, she used films taken with the Palomar Observatory’s wide-field telescope, combined with a stereoscope, to find objects moving against the background of fixed stars. In 1996, […]
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Sunday 22 AugustThe Moon passes 4 ° south of Jupiter at 1 a.m. EDT. At this time, both are some 35 ° high in the southern sky, impossible to miss. Jupiter, which appears directly above the Moon, has a magnitude of -2.9 – still visible even in the bright wash of the nearby moon. Both […]
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Aug
Well it’s interesting: NASA launches spaceship to explore asteroids on Artemis I, the first test flight in their attempt to return to the moon. The spaceship is called Near-Earth Asteroid, or NEA Scout, and get this: it uses a solar sail for propulsion, the first interplanetary mission to do so! OK, first: Artemis I is […]