Questions tagged [asteroid]
Questions about asteroids, bodies in the solar system smaller then planets which orbit the sun.
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How much ice is there in the inner asteroid belt?
After asking this question (How long would it take before we use up all the ice in the asteroid belt?)I did some research to find out how much ice there is in the inner asteroid belt (Not the Kuiper ...
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How long would it take before we use up all the ice in the asteroid belt? [closed]
Lets say that we have an interplanetary society using the ice from asteroids to convert it into rocket fuel, how long would it take before we have used up all the ice on the asteroids.
Conditions:
We ...
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Why wouldn't you use a star tracker in the asteroid belt? [closed]
I am in a group discussion with some people, and I told them what I wrote below as a reason why using a star tracker does not make sense for a spacecraft in an asteroid belt. Furthermore, I am curious ...
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A Philae Lander (like) anchoring harpoons on M-Type (metallic) asteroid. Can a nail gun and the effect of Cold Welding be a working solution?
Everyone knows what happened to Philae lander (Rosetta mission). It is hard to predict the reliability of anchoring points before we know surface conditions on the asteroid. On the other hand, it is ...
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How to maintain balance and center of gravity when pushing a 100-ton piece of asteroid?
I understand that rotating momentum around a fixed axis can help with the center of balance. But is it enough?
In my case, a space tug has to burn its engine for 1 min, accelerate a 100-ton piece of ...
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What would be the most fuel-efficient propulsion solution to accelerate a 100-ton piece of NEO asteroid towards Earth?
We need acceleration to about 300-500 m/s relative to an NEO asteroid - to get to an LEO.
What is needed is the lightest package possible, that includes engine, fuel tanks, control module and ...
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1 kiloton nuclear device to clear up debris and dust to expose the iron-nickel core for open-pit mining (on M-Type asteroids)?
My understanding is that initial acceleration from the blast and following solar wind will clear the area around the asteroid for spacecraft navigation (in reasonable time). A 2-3 kilometer M-type ...
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Can Nuclear Pulse Propulsion (Project Orion) accelerate a 100,000 ton M-type (metallic) asteroid to a LEO? [closed]
Project Orion: specific impulse in the range of 6,000 seconds.
For example – Starship Interplanetary (SpaceX):
Max Fuel (after refueling at orbit) - 1,950 ton
Fuel left after arriving at NEO asteroid –...
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Gravity assist (flyby/slingshot) from an asteroid?
Could a spacecraft perform a gravity assist maneuver in an asteroid?
Has it ever been done? I tend to think that the asteroid would need to be quite massive for a "significant" change of ...
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Is there any evidence from previous missions to asteroids that said asteroids have minable minerals?
Claims about asteroid mining talk about how many resources are on each asteroid, with claims of "trillions of dollars" of raw materials. Ignoring the cost of getting to the asteroid, have ...
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How to add an asteroid into GMAT (General Mission Analysis Tool). How to generate a reliable SPK file
I'm currently trying to use GMAT to represent a mission centered around the asteroid 523632 2009UX17. To represent the asteroid's orbit I've used the Horizons Online Ephemeris System: https://ssd.jpl....
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How different would a comet impact be vs. an asteroid impact?
If a 50 meter asteroid caused a 1.5 kilometer crater as Barringer Crater is described, how different would the impact of a 50 meter comet be, assuming the comet was 85% water and other volatiles, with ...
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Is there an elegant method to stop an asteroid's spin?
There have been proposals to mine asteroids, perhaps after “tugging” them to a more accessible location. As well, proposals have been made to move asteroids which threaten collision with earth.
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Would planetary quarantine have to be used for asteroid mining missions?
Currently, sample return missions have to follow very delicate procedures to move the sample to the return vehicle. This is incredibly complicated and may explain why so few missions have launched.
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What caused the jitter in the DART video as it approached Dimorphos?
If you look at the series of images DART took as it approached Dimorphos, the asteroid jumps around a bit as you approach. Does this mean small corrections were being made right up till near the end? ...
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Can DART/Dimorphos impact be seen with naked eye?
Can today's DART/Dimorphos impact be seen with naked eye?
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Could any of the JWST instruments image the rings around 10199 Chariklo?
The asteroid 10199 Chariklo orbits between Saturn and Uranus. It has two rings with radii 386 and 400 km and widths of about 6.9 km and 0.12 km respectively. It is currently 15.94 AU from Earth. Do ...
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Asteroid mining: will full asteroid prospecting require sending probes to each asteroid?
It is well known that many characteristics about an asteroid such as orbit, size, rotation and chemical composition can be obtained remotely thanks to passive techniques such as spectrophotometry, ...
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Why would binary asteroids created from YORP spin-up tend to have mutual orbits coplanar to their heliocentric orbit?
Vavilov, et al., "Evidence for widely-separated binary asteroids recorded by craters on Mars", Icarus 383 115045 (2022)
says on page 8 that binary asteroids created through the Yarkovsky–O'...
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How to calculate the max mass and speed of an asteroid capturable by gravity assist?
After reading this question and the answers, I am wondering about the limits of slingshot method to capture an asteroid into a planet orbit.
Is it possible to calculate if an asteroid can be captured ...
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How could 99942 Apophis, in 2029, be captured and brought into a low Earth orbit?
I'm currently attempting to plan out a mission where, in 2029, during Apophis's close approach to Earth, a rocket is sent up to intercept Apophis and decelerate it, making it orbit the Earth. At it's ...
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What processes create an object with an interstellar velocity?
An object like Oumuamua originates in a solar system. This object has roughly the inertia of everything else there. I can imagine stuff on the edge of the accretion zone for a star that...WANDER off......
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Positions of asteroids in heliocentric ecliptic (x,y,z) coordinates
I would like to make positions of asteroids in heliocentric ecliptic (x,y,z) coordinates plot for a given date, like in the image below (Matsuoka N. Ryo (CC-BY 4.0)).
For that I need so-called state ...
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Why are Jupiter's trojans even remotely stable?
The spacecraft Lucy is en route to explore Jupiter's trojan asteroids. Lucy is so named because the trojan asteroids are believed to be fossil remnants from the formation of the solar sytem. ...
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Smallest known asteroid with moon
The asteroid Didymos is only 780m in "diameter" with a moon, Dimorphos only 170m across. Is Didymos the smallest object known to have a natural satellite? Also, contact binaries where the ...
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delta-v for a trip to Bennu asteroid
101955 Bennu has a mean diameter of 490 m (1,610 ft; 0.30 mi) and was the target of the OSIRIS-REx sample return mission. What is the delta-v using a Hohmann transfer orbit to do a round trip from low ...
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Thorium in space
I am looking at the possibility of future space habitats being powered by Thorium. Main question is where to get Thorium? Could there be a metallic asteroid (like 16 Psyche) that contains Thorium and ...
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In what year was asteroid Donaldjohanson chosen as a target for Lucy?
Asteroid 52246 Donaldjohanson was officially named in 2015. Was it chosen as a target for Lucy before being named?
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How Much Could You Deflect the Path of a 500 meter Diameter Asteroid with 100 STAR48 Rocket Motors
Assume we detected a 500 meter diameter asteroid hurling toward Earth at 10 Km/sec (about half the speed of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs). Assume it has a density of 2.4 g/cm and that we ...
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If an extinction-level asteroid were to be detected, could we avert it?
If an extinction-level asteroid were to be detected on an impact course with Earth, could we avert it effectively with existing technology and systems, such as course adjustment via nuclear missiles? (...
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What took it so long to plan a exploration mission for Trojan asteroids?
There are space probes that flew past asteroids, some came close to it, some orbited and some landed on it and took samples. Those asteroids belonged in the main belt. Now, Lucy will become one of the ...
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Can we land on an asteroid and ride on it?
If we could land on an asteroid, not necessarily a human, we would save the fuel consumed for flying the spacecraft and we will benefit by having the systems on it running for a very long time..
If ...
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Has there ever been an instance of asteroid discovery by radar; seen first by radar rather than being observed after optical discovery?
In a discussion below this answer to Can we use something like RADAR to detect asteroids? I'm complaining that the answer is essentially wrong;
Yes, radar is one of the useful tools for detecting and ...
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Can we use something like RADAR to detect asteroids?
I know that detecting asteroids is difficult because many of them we find are the ones that reflect sunlight but can we use something like RADAR to detect others?
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Could a laser array and miniature light sails be used to deflect asteroids that are on a collision path with Earth?
Several projects related to interstellar travel have been proposed, like interstellar travel with miniature light sail starships , or the Breakthrough Starshot project
Question. Could a laser array ...
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What asteroids have the least delta-v to reach?
I think the question needs very little clarification - specific asteroids and/or their asteroid orbit type would answer it. My own interest is in what would best suit targeting for asteroid mining on ...
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Is there an estimate for the average mass of all meteoroids and asteroids hitting Earth's atmosphere in one year?
I wonder how much mass is entering Earth's atmosphere every year in the form of meteoroids and asteroids. This excludes micro-meteoroids, dust particles, molecules etc.
Quick search result talks only ...
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How can we mine Near Earth Objects?
After skimming this Worldbuilding SE answer, I wonder if any companies or space agencies have plans in place to mine Near Earth Objects(NEOs) in the future.
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Why is the Southern Hemisphere of Mars is heavily struck by asteroids while the northern part is relatively smooth?
The northern hemisphere of Mars is smooth with flats lands but areas particularly below the Tharsis rise is heavily cratered, also Hellas basin, one of the largest impact craters is located in the ...
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Nomenclature of Interstellar Objects and Stars [closed]
I tried searching the answer to this on Google for hours and visited the IAU website as well, but it didn't really clarify my doubt. I was reading about Black Widow Pulsar, which is an "eclipsing ...
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Likely ways to move asteroids
Asteroids for mining and to make habitats: what are likely ways to move them?
Orion project nuclear explosions might be plausible, but would probably be expensive, use very heavy materials from Earth, ...
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Horizons ephemeris - how did they calculate that “Keplerian GM” value?
I’ve been playing with the NAIF’s SPICE library for some time (CSPICE in particular). In order to obtain the state vector of an asteroid from its osculating elements, I’m calling the “conics_c” ...
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Why do many comets & asteroids keep moving through the solar system, but space ships need fuel to do so?
Why do many comets & asteroids keep moving through the solar system (for centuries), after they were dislodged from their parent bodies after a cosmic event/explosion?
But a space-shuttle ...
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Minimum delta V required to return a piece of metallic asteroid 16 Psyche to Earth?
Suppose somebody sent a rover to Psyche 16 and found massive concentrated deposits of platinum-group metals near the surface, and turned it into a 10 ton sphere of platinum/iridium/osmium/gold alloy ...
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If I know the masses, positions, and velocities of two objects, how do I calculate their trajectories under gravity?
I was thinking about the effect of a near-miss with an asteroid upon the orbit of the earth around the Sun. My goal is to figure out a formula I could use for a visualization I'd like to build to get ...
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Spinning 16 Psyche at Mars L1 to envelop Mars with a magnetosheath?
16 Psyche is theorized to be the remnant iron core of an early small protoplanet that might have had it's surface and mantle stripped away through violent asteroid impacts.
Some modeling of possible ...
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Gravitational force of asteroid Bennu
How can the gravitational force of Bennu (being so weak) hold the spacecraft in orbit?
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How hard is it to fly through the tail of a comet? Has it been done?
The line between comets and asteroids is somewhat blurred (see below) but when we see a big bright tail we at least like to call it a comet. This question is about exploration of the tails of big-tail-...
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What are the challenges for delivering bulk asteroid commodities to Earth? [closed]
I think nickel-iron is an extraordinary and perhaps unique resource that is (by Earth market standards) valuable even as a raw and unprocessed commodity - perhaps several thousand US$ per ton for high ...
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How can stellar images be "subtracted" from a sequence of exposures? (difference imaging)
The press release UH ATLAS telescope discovers first-of-its-kind asteroid from the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Hawaii shows an image of an "active asteroid" among a field of stars. ...
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