Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by caltrek »

NASA Predicted Where Small Asteroid Hit Earth Hours In Advance
by Dr Alfredo Carpineti, PhD.
November 25, 2022

Introduction:
(IFL Science) A small asteroid burned over the sky of Ontario, Canada, one week ago. No known damages were caused, as is often the case with such small objects – but the event was a perfect testing ground for NASA’s Scout impact hazard assessment system. Asteroid 2022 WJ1 was discovered on the evening of November 18, and burned through the atmosphere just a few hours later.

Detection and tracking are crucial aspects of planetary defense, and the efforts are focused on dangerous asteroids. However, it is always good to test systems in a real-life scenario. Posing no threat, 2022 WJ1 was just one meter across (three feet). It was observed only 3.5 hours before impact, but NASA was able to track it and predict where it was going to burn.

“The planetary defense community really demonstrated their skill and readiness with their response to this short-warning event,” Kelly Fast, Near-Earth Object Observations program manager for the Planetary Defense Coordination Office (PDCO) at NASA Headquarters in Washington, said in a statement. “Such harmless impacts become spontaneous real-world exercises and give us confidence that NASA’s planetary defense systems are capable of informing the response to the potential for a serious impact by a larger object.”

The NASA-funded Catalina Sky Survey discovered the asteroid. Seven minutes later, Scout knew that there was one chance in four that it would impact somewhere between Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of North America.

Conclusion:
The discovery bodes well for more serious threats. This is only the sixth asteroid that has been tracked in space before hitting Earth.
Read more here: https://www.iflscience.com/nasa-predic ... ce-66386
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by caltrek »

A Fireball That Exploded Over Canada Has Been Traced to a Very Unexpected Origin
by Michelle Starr
December14 , 2022

Introduction:
(Science Alert) Earth is under constant bombardment from space. Dust, pebbles, and chunks of rock fall into our atmosphere on a daily basis, sometimes burning up spectacularly in a blazing streak across the sky.

These bolides, or fireballs, are typically larger pieces of asteroid or comet that have broken off their parent body and wound up falling into Earth's gravity well.

But scientists have ascertained that one such fireball that exploded over Canada last year is not the usual kind of meteor. Based on its trajectory across the sky, a team has traced the object all the way through the Solar System to a starting point in the Oort Cloud – a vast sphere of icy objects far, far beyond the orbit of Pluto.

It's not extremely unusual for material from the Oort Cloud to be ejected and sent inwards towards the Sun. However, this one burned up and exploded in a manner that said it was made of rock, not the chunk of frozen ammonia, methane, and water we might expect of an Oort Cloud object.

It's a discovery that suggests our understanding of the Oort Cloud could use a little tweaking.
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/a-firebal ... ed-origin

Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by caltrek »

NASA and HAARP Conclude Asteroid Experiment
December 29, 2022

Introduction:
(EurekAlert) A powerful transmitter in remote Alaska sent long wavelength radio signals into space Tuesday with the purpose of bouncing them off an asteroid to learn about its interior.

The asteroid, 2010 XC15, is estimated to be about 500 feet across and is passing by Earth at two lunar distances, which is twice the distance between the Earth and the moon.

Results of Tuesday’s experiment at the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program research facility at Gakona could aid efforts to defend Earth from larger asteroids that could cause significant damage.

“We will be analyzing the data over the next few weeks and hope to publish the results in the coming months,” said Mark Haynes, lead investigator on the project and a radar systems engineer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California. “This experiment was the first time an asteroid observation was attempted at such low frequencies.

“This shows the value of HAARP as a potential future research tool for the study of near-Earth objects,” he said.
Read more here: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/975449
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8733
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by wjfox »

Asteroid 2023 BU: Space rock to pass closer than some satellites

9 hours ago

You definitely shouldn't panic but there is a biggish asteroid about to pass by Earth in the coming hours.

About the size of a minibus, the space rock, known as 2023 BU, will whip over the southern tip of South America just after midnight GMT.

With a closest expected approach of 3,600km (2,200 miles), it counts as a close shave.

And it illustrates how there are still asteroids of significant size lurking near Earth that remain to be detected.

This one was only picked up last weekend by amateur astronomer Gennadiy Borisov, who operates from Nauchnyi in Crimea, the peninsula that Russia seized from Ukraine in 2014.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-64411469


Image
User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by caltrek »

JWST Has Accidentally Detected a Tiny Asteroid 'Hidden' Between Mars and Jupiter
by Michele Starr
February 7, 2023

Introduction:
(Science Alert) Failed observations of a specific target using the JWST have resulted in something way more interesting.

In the belt of asteroids that drifts between Mars and Jupiter, the space telescope spotted a previously unknown, and exceptionally tiny, asteroid. The yet-unnamed chunk of rock measures just 100 to 200 meters (328 to 656 feet) across and is quite probably the smallest object yet picked up by the JWST.

It's not only a magnificent demonstration of the JWST's capabilities, it suggests those capabilities can be harnessed to better categorize the millions of pieces of rubble lurking in the Main Belt.

"We – completely unexpectedly – detected a small asteroid in publicly available MIRI calibration observations," says astronomer Thomas Müller of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany.

"The measurements are some of the first MIRI measurements targeting the ecliptic plane and our work suggests that many new objects will be detected with this instrument."
Read more here: https://www.sciencealert.com/jwst-has- ... d-jupiter
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8733
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by wjfox »

New NASA DART Data Prove Viability of Asteroid Deflection as Planetary Defense Strategy

/ 1 March 2023 /

Four studies co-authored by UMD astronomers offer new insight into how deflection missions can protect the planet from future Earth-bound asteroids and comets.

NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was Earth’s first attempt at launching a spacecraft to intentionally collide with and deflect an asteroid as a planetary defense technique. On September 26, 2022, the DART spacecraft collided with a small asteroid moon called Dimorphos, which orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos. Neither asteroid posed a threat to Earth, but they represented similar celestial bodies that could one day approach and endanger the planet.

In four papers published in the journal Nature on March 1, 2023, the DART team—which includes University of Maryland astronomers—detailed DART’s successful impact, the possible physics behind the collision, observations of the resulting debris ejected from the asteroid and calculations of Dimorphos’ orbital changes. The findings confirm the feasibility of redirecting near-Earth objects like asteroids as a planetary defense measure.

“We can’t stop hurricanes or earthquakes yet, but we ultimately learned that we can prevent an asteroid impact with sufficient time, warning and resources,” said Derek Richardson, a professor of astronomy at UMD and a DART investigation working group lead. “With sufficient time, a relatively small change in an asteroid’s orbit would cause it to miss the Earth, preventing large-scale destruction from occurring on our planet.”

https://cmns.umd.edu/news-events/news/n ... e-strategy


Image
Dimorphos (pictured left), a small asteroid moon, orbits a larger asteroid called Didymos (right). Photo courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins APL.
User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8733
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by wjfox »

User avatar
wjfox
Site Admin
Posts: 8733
Joined: Sat May 15, 2021 6:09 pm
Location: London, UK
Contact:

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by wjfox »

User avatar
caltrek
Posts: 6509
Joined: Mon May 17, 2021 1:17 pm

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by caltrek »

Asteroid Analysis Reveals Prebiotic Compounds
by Jeff Hecht
March 21, 2023

Introduction:
(Sky and Telescope) Analysis of tiny samples from the near-Earth asteroid 162173 Ryugu has yielded uracil, one of the four nucleobases in RNA and a stepping stone on the path to life. It bolsters the case that space may have provided compounds vital in the evolution of life on Earth.

A decade ago, researchers studying meteorites found several compounds considered precursors to life. And last year, Yasuhiro Oba (Hokkaido University, Japan) and colleagues used a more sensitive technique to detect additional compounds essential for life in meteorites. Evidence seemed to show that chemical reactions in the young solar system might have produced the building blocks of life, which meteorites then delivered to Earth.

However, meteorites are far from pristine. They pick up contaminants from the air, water, and heating as they fall through the atmosphere. The acid test is to collect pristine samples from asteroids while they still orbit in space. The samples that Japan’s Hayabusa 2 probe carefully collected during its visit to Ryugu should have very little or no terrestrial contamination, strengthening the case for an extraterrestrial origin for any prebiotic materials found.

Hayabusa 2 collected 5.4 grams from two spots on Ryugu and delivered them to Earth on December 6, 2020. Early studies showed the samples contained many organic compounds. That led Oba's group to analyze two 10-milligram samples using the same sensitive technique they had used earlier on meteorites. The technique can detect nucleic acid bases at levels down to parts per trillion in small samples.

Now, they report in Nature Communications that uracil is present at a level of parts per billion in both Ryugu samples. While this concentration is different than they’d previously found in meteorites, Oba says that might be because the parent bodies of the meteorites and of Ryugu underwent different levels of aqueous alteration and other processes. They also detected niacin (vitamin B3) as well as other organic molecules, but they didn’t find any other nucleobases.
Read more here: https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy- ... ompounds/

For the report as presented in Nature Communications: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-36904-3


Image
A conceptual image shows uracil and vitamin B3; Hayabusa 2 brought back samples from Ryugu containing both of these prebiotic compounds.
NASA Goddard / JAXA / Dan Gallagher
Don't mourn, organize.

-Joe Hill
User avatar
Time_Traveller
Posts: 2105
Joined: Sun May 16, 2021 4:49 pm
Location: Clermont, Indiana, USA, October 7th 2019 B.C.E

Re: Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors

Post by Time_Traveller »

Rare green comet is passing by Earth for the first time in 50,000 years
April 12, 2023

A green comet that has just been discovered is going to fly past our Pale Blue Dot and could possibly be seen with the unaided eye.

NASA and CalTech’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory predicted that the green comet C/2022 E3 (ZTF), which is named, would initially approach the Sun before circling back towards Earth between January 12 and February 2.

The comet will be visible in the early sky around the end of January for skywatchers in the Northern Hemisphere, according to a JPL article. Beginning in early February, observers in the Southern Hemisphere should be able to view it.

The greatest viewing time, according to Space.com, is on January 21 during the new moon, when the sky would be very black without the Moon’s illumination.

The JPL says that although comets are notoriously unpredictable, if this one maintains its present brightness trend, it will be simple to identify with binoculars and may even become visible to the unassisted eye under dark skies.

Image
https://stunning.sci-nature.com/2023/04 ... h.html?m=1
"We all have our time machines, don't we. Those that take us back are memories...And those that carry us forward, are dreams."

-H.G Wells.
Post Reply