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    Category Astronomy/Space

    Weird, Wild Gravity of Asteroid Bennu

    March 20, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The asteroid Bennu as seen by the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. The flying saucer-like shape of Bennu is generated, in part, by its spin.
    Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/University of Arizona

    Research led by the University of Colorado Boulder is revealing the Alice in Wonderland-like physics that govern gravity near the surface of the asteroid Bennu. The new findings are part of a suite of papers published today by the team behind NASA’s Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission. And they come just three months after OSIRIS-REx first encountered Bennu on Dec. 3, 2018.

    Since then, the spacecraft has completed a few dozen laps around the asteroid, which is about as tall as the Empire State Building, circling Bennu fro...

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    Hayabusa2 Probes Asteroid Ryugu for secrets

    March 19, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Ryugu is a C-type asteroid — rich in carbon — about 900m wide.
    Credit: © 2019 Seiji Sugita et al., Science

    Hayabusa2 helps researchers understand ingredients for life in early solar system. The first data received from the Hayabusa2 spacecraft in orbit of asteroid Ryugu helps space scientists explore conditions in the early solar system. The space probe gathered vast amounts of images and other data which gives researchers clues about Ryugu’s history, such as how it may have formed from a larger parent body. These details in turn allow researchers to better estimate quantities and types of materials essential for life that were present as Earth formed.

    “The ground shook. My heart pounded. The clock counted...

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    Bernese Mars camera CaSSIS returns spectacular images

    March 17, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The image shows a panchromatic channel image of the InSight landing site on Mars. The image shows an area of about 2.25 km x 2.25 km in the Elysium Planitia region. The original image had a scale of about 4.5 m per pixel, and has been stretched by a factor of two for display purposes. The resulting resolution of this image is 5-6 m/pixel. The positions of the InSight lander itself, the blast marks from the retro rockets used during landing, the heatshield and the backshell of the entry descent and landing system are marked. The original image had a scale of about 4.5 m per pixel, and has been expanded to 2.25 m/pixel for display purposes.
    Credit: © ESA/Roscosmos/CaSSIS

    3 years ago, on March 14 2016, the Bernese Mars camera CaSSIS started its journey to Mars with the ‘ExoMars Trace Ga...

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    ALMA observes the Formation Sites of Solar-system-like planets

    March 17, 2019, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    ALMA image of the dusty disk around the young star DM Tau
    ALMA image of the dusty disk around the young star DM Tau. You can see two concentric rings where planets may be forming. 
    Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Kudo et al.

    Researchers have spotted the formation sites of planets around a young star resembling our Sun. Two rings of dust around the star, at distances comparable to the asteroid belt and the orbit of Neptune in our Solar System, suggest that we are witnessing the formation of a planetary system similar to our own.

    The Solar System is thought to have formed from a cloud of cosmic gas and dust 4.6 billion years ago. By studying young planetary systems forming around other stars, astronomers hope to learn more about our own origins.

    Tomoyuki Kudo, an astronomer at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ), and his ...

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