Monday, March 2, 2020

NASA asteroid alert: Agency tracks 48,000MPH space rock headed on close approach | Science | News

At these breakneck speeds, NASA said the asteroid will approach the planet at about 4.33am GMT (11.33pm EST).

The news comes less than a week after NASA’s tracking systems first spotted the object in the solar system.

The asteroid was confirmed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) and the Center for Near Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) on February 27, 2020.

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Apollo-type space rocks race around the Sun on orbits that cross Earth’s orbit similarly to Asteroid 1862 Apollo.

Publisher: Express.co.uk
Date: 2020-03-01T22:35:00 00:00
Author: Sebastian Kettley
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While you're here, how about this:

Asteroid news: NASA reveals 'very important information' about volcanic asteroid Vesta

Vesta is of particular fascination to scientists because the asteroid can expand our understanding about the evolution of planet such as Earth.

Data showed that Vesta was volcanically active for at least 30 million years after its original formation

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Research lead Professor Fred Jourdan, from Curtin University’s school of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said: “Vesta is the only largely intact asteroid which shows complete differentiation with a metallic core, a silicate mantle and a thin basaltic crust, and it’s also very small, with a diameter of only about 326 miles (525km).

Publisher: Express.co.uk
Date: 2020-02-26T16:03:00 00:00
Author: Tom Fish
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An Iron-clad Asteroid - SpaceRef


Microscopic images in false colors. (a) One of investigated Itokawa grain. The mineral troilite (FeS, violet) is surrounded by silicate minerals (green). (b) Troilite surface (violet) with iron whiskers (blue). (c) An enlarged image of an iron whisker. CREDIT Toru Matsumoto

Itokawa would normally be a fairly average near-Earth asteroid - a rocky mass measuring only a few hundred metres in diameter, which orbits the sun amid countless other celestial bodies and repeatedly crosses the orbit of the Earth.

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Ryugu: A Not So Magnetic Asteroid - Eos

As magnetic fields can influence planetary formation processes like dust accretion, it is important to understand which solar system objects had a magnetic field and which didn’t. Of the six asteroids where measurements have been attempted, four have shown no evidence of detectable magnetism.

Ryugu, recently visited by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa2 and its lander MASCOT (developed by DLR and CNES), may be different. It is spectroscopically similar to carbonaceous chondrite meteorites that have shown evidence of ancient magnetic fields.

Publisher: Eos
Twitter: @AGU_Eos
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In case you are keeping track:

Iron 'whiskers' found covering Itokawa asteroid samples - UPI.com

Feb. 28 (UPI) -- Scientists have found iron "whiskers" on particles from the asteroid samples returned by the Japanese space agency's Hayabusa mission.

In 2005, JAXA's Hayabusa probe hunted down and landed on the near-Earth asteroid 25143 Itokawa. Five years later, the spacecraft returned to Earth with soil samples collected from the asteroid's surface -- something that had never been done before.

Over the last decade, the Itokawa samples have been analyzed by dozens of scientists, but until recently, the presence of these tiny crystalline threads of iron went unnoticed.

Publisher: UPI
Date: 2020-02-28T16:05:19-05:00
Author: Brooks Hays
Twitter: @UPI
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Earth Snags A 'Mini-Moon' As Asteroid Is Ensnared In Orbit | Here & Now

The "near-Earth asteroid" or "temporary captured object" has been orbiting our planet since 2017. The natural asteroid is thought to be about 12 feet across, or roughly the size of a car.

Astronomers in Arizona first observed the small object earlier this month, giving it the provisional name 2020 CD3.

Eric Christensen , director of the Catalina Sky Survey, a NASA-funded near-Earth asteroid search team based at The University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, says astronomers believe the mini-moon has been orbiting Earth for a few years.

Twitter: @hereandnow
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Mind-blowing video shows terrifying size of asteroids – and some could hit Earth

A CAPTIVATING video has laid bare the shocking scale of some of the largest asteroids in the Solar System.

Crafted by Spanish 3D artist Alvaro Gracia Montoya, the clip reveals how big nearly two dozen nearby space rocks are compared to New York City.

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They range from the mini space rock 2008 TC3 – only double the height of the average man – all the way to the ginormous asteroid Ceres .

Drifting in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, Ceres is so big (about a third the size of the Moon) that it's technically a dwarf planet.

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Publisher: The Sun
Date: 2020-02-26T10:41:51 00:00
Author: https www facebook com thesunstuff
Twitter: @thesun
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Bad Astronomy | Space potatoes and rubber duckies: Shattered asteroids reassemble into weird

I recently wrote about Arrokoth , a double-lobed icy world orbiting the Sun past Pluto, and what we've learned about how it likely formed. There were some details left out, some steps skipped... but it turns out other research fills in those blanks.

But then we started using radar to ping ones that passed close to Earth like a cop pings a speeding car, and using the reflected pulse to determine their shapes... and also built spacecraft that went and visited them, observing them up close, sending back detailed images and other data to scientists on Earth. They went from points of light to being worlds.

Publisher: SYFY WIRE
Date: 2020-02-25T09:00:00-05:00
Author: https www facebook com Phil Plait 251070648641
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