A NASA satellite designed to hunt for potentially dangerous asteroids and comets just took a big step toward the launch pad.
NASA has approved the Near-Earth Object (NEO) Surveyor space telescope to move into "preliminary design," its next phase of development on the road to a planned liftoff in 2026, agency officials announced on Friday (June 11).
"NEO Surveyor will have the capability to rapidly accelerate the rate at which NASA is able to discover asteroids and comets that could pose a hazard to the Earth , and it is being designed to discover 90% of asteroids 140 meters [460 feet] in size or larger within a decade of being launched," Mike Kelley, NEO Surveyor program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C., said in a statement .
EarthSky | Asteroid Psyche: $10,000 quadrillion or rubble pile?
In 2022, NASA will launch a mission to the asteroid known as 16 Psyche. It’s our first mission to a world that isn’t primarily rocky or icy, but instead metallic. Scientists have said Psyche might be the exposed metal core of an early planet that failed to form. They’ve estimated its worth at $10,000 quadrillion . Now a new study suggests something else.
Rather than being an intact exposed core of an early planet, it might actually be closer to a rubble pile.
This Asteroid-Hunting Telescope Is One Step Closer To Launch
NASA's working hard to boost its efforts to seek out potentially hazardous asteroids straying near Earth.
The agency announced that its long-planned NEO Surveyor — that's "near Earth object" — was approved to move into the preliminary design phase. That's a key milestone along the road to getting approved for construction and launch in 2026, because now team members can start to talk about the best instruments to find these curious small objects in space.
Quadrillion-Dollar 'Psyche' Asteroid Is Even Weirder Than We Thought Say Scientists
Though to be an intact exposed iron-nickel core of an early planet with some suggesting that it ... [+] could be worth a staggering $10,000 quadrillion, new research published in The Planetary Science Journal suggests that 16 Psyche is vastly less metallic than thought.
About 230 million miles/370 million kilometers from Earth, 16 Psyche was first spotted by Italian astronomer Annibale de Gasparis in 1852. It was the 16th asteroid ever discovered, hence its designation.
Summer Interns Capture Asteroid Occultation | SETI Institute
The SETI Institute's summer internship research program, which this year includes 13 Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) students, and two STEM Teacher and Researcher (STAR) students, is underway at the SETI Institute and, in a couple of cases, virtually. And two students, Yuki Matsumura from CalPoly and Peter Santana-Rodriguez from the University of Puerto Rico, have already had the opportunity to observe an asteroid occultation.
An occultation is when an object, such as a planet, moon or asteroid, passes in front of another object (such as a star), blocking the view of whatever is behind it. On June 14, 2021, the main-belt asteroid 2426 Simonov was predicted to occult a 10-mag star and cast its shadow above the Bay Area of California. Shortly before 10 pm PDT, the students and their mentor, Dr. Franck Marchis, traveled throughout the Bay Area to capture the nearly 1.5-second occultation.
Spotlight on Asteroid Hyalosis - Clinical Ophthalmology | OPTH
Asteroid hyalosis is a benign degenerative condition of the vitreous. It has a clinical appearance of stars (or asteroids) shining in the night sky. Although some individuals experience visual discomfort or blurring, especially if the opacities are densely crowded close to the macula, asteroid hyalosis is generally asymptomatic in the large majority of patients. Hence, asteroid hyalosis is more often a challenge for the eye of the beholder than to the eye with the asteroid hyalosis.
China launches commercial asteroid hunter and 3 other satellites into space | Space
China launched four new satellites into orbit on Thursday (June 10), including a commercial satellite for tracking near-Earth asteroids .
A Long March 2D rocket lifted off from Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center in north China on Thursday at 11:03 p.m. EDT (0303 GMT, or 11:03 a.m. local time Friday, June 11). Footage of the launch shows white insulation tiles, designed to help keep fuel at the right temperature, falling to the ground as the rocket soars into the sky.
Not all that: Asteroid 16 Psyche may not be as metallic or dense as first thought, finds study-
A new study by researchers at the University of Arizona (UArizona) suggests that the origin of the asteroid 16 Psyche could be different from what was believed. The new study also indicates that the asteroid may not be as metallic or dense as everyone has initially believed. The study was conducted by David Cantillo, an undergraduate student of UArizona. It has been published in the peer-reviewed journal The Planetary Science.
The study states that 16 Psyche has 82.5 percent metal, seven percent low-iron pyroxene, and 10.5 percent carbonaceous chondrite which was delivered by the impact created from other asteroids. It was initially believed that 16 Psyche was an exposed iron core of a small planet that could not form in the initial days of the solar system.
John Shearer: Jim And Shirley Smith Honored With Asteroid Namings By Appreciative Former
Ryugu asteroid samples show presence of water | NHK WORLD-JAPAN News
A Japanese researcher says an initial analysis of samples from the Ryugu asteroid has yielded data that shows the presence of plenty of water and organic matter on the asteroid.
Professor Nakamura Eizo of Okayama University announced the findings at a news conference held by the Japanese space agency JAXA on Thursday.
His team is one of the eight in Japan that have received or will receive samples of rock and sand from Ryugu for analysis. The samples were brought to Earth last December in a capsule released by Japan's Hayabusa2 asteroid probe.
Happening on Twitter
Right now, astronauts are installing ISS Roll-Out Solar Arrays (iROSAs) on @Space_Station. Our Double Asteroid Redi… https://t.co/BvcYNVW8vj NASASolarSystem (from Milky Way Galaxy) Wed Jun 16 17:44:55 +0000 2021
An asteroid-hunting telescope? NEO Surveyor, or Near-Earth Object Surveyor space telescope, is moving into its next… https://t.co/2BgoQ3vjDx NASAJPL (from Pasadena, Calif.) Fri Jun 11 19:09:29 +0000 2021
NASA asteroid-hunting satellite clears hurdle on path to 2026 launch https://t.co/b2mMbKXeGq https://t.co/gdAoqsrJMR SPACEdotcom (from NYC) Tue Jun 15 16:55:34 +0000 2021
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