Questions tagged [asteroid]
Questions about asteroids, bodies in the solar system smaller then planets which orbit the sun.
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If the Tesla Roadster happened to crash into an asteroid, would the asteroid be damaged?
If the car has the luck to find a rock of more or less his mass, taking the mass and speed into account, can it make a considerable amount of damage in an asteroid?
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What are the actual legal prerequisites for extracting natural resources from asteroids by private entities?
The Moon Treaty states that no extraterrestrial property can be owned by any organization or person, with the exception of international and governmental organization.
So, taking the current state of ...
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How many companies currently specialize in (the research of) asteroid mining?
After two major players aiming at asteroid mining (not just the Moon) were bought up and repurposed, who still does follow this topic as a primary business model?
Deep Space Industries was bought by ...
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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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Do all dangerous asteroids first pass through keyholes?
Scitech Daily's MIT Engineers Devise the Best Way to Deflect an Incoming Planet-Killer Asteroid
Now MIT researchers have devised a framework for deciding which type of mission would be most ...
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Is any non-planetary celestial body smaller than a star known to be a spontaneous radiator?
Space is apparently filled with lots of debris that did not make a star, system, or planet. In a pinch asteroids, and comets may serve to illustrate. Asteroids are typically flagged as carbon, stone, ...
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Does the Moon have any captured objects orbiting it?
Does our moon have any captured objects orbiting it that have been discovered, such as asteroids or other debris?
If it doesn't, is it possible that it could capture them in the future, given the ...
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Would an asteroid collision affect the Moon's orbit, and what consequence would that have for Earth?
If an asteroid collided with the Moon, or an atomic bomb was blasted on it, would it affect the orbit of the Moon? The Moon's gravity plays a major role in ocean tides. If the Moon's orbit changed, ...
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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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On what target will TransAstra Corp's MiniBee practice its Optical Mining technique?
Space.com's NASA Eyes Wild Space Tech Ideas to Mine the Moon (and Asteroids, Too!) says:
The other project is called Mini Bee and is led by Joel Sercel, founder and CEO of TransAstra Corp. Mini Bee ...
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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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What resources could be gained from asteroid mining that would be worth the effort?
Obviously asteroids are abundant in many of the raw materials we use today, but considering the (presumably) large expense involved in mining from asteroids it may not be worthwhile to mine some ...
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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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Can we use magnetic devices to anchor to asteroids?
One of the challenges about missions to asteroids is staying attached to them when you land.
Many asteroids are described as nickel/iron, and we know that both nickel and iron are ferromagnetic.
Is it ...
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How can I derive an mass/size estimate of an asteroid from JPL parameters?
I'm looking for a list of objects with a semi-major axis between 0.95 AU and 1.05 AU that are probably larger than 1 km in diameter. For this, the JPL Small-Body Database Search Engine seems to be ...
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Using asteroids as propellant source
If we could capture an asteroid or meteor, can we use it as a vehicle for space travel? From what I understand, propulsion is a result of mass flow, so we could use a rail gun configuration to propel ...
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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 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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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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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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Are there any equations out there that can calculate the burnup of an asteroid depending on angle?
Are there any equations that can calculate the burnup of an asteroid depending on the angle? I want to be able to calculate the magnitude of an asteroid impact with the angle being the changeable ...
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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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Could we launch a rubble pile simulant to LEO for astronauts to practice on before visiting natural milligravity objects?
There are proposals and maybe serious plans to send astronauts to asteroids or Mars' moons, objects which are a few kilometers or just a few meters in diameter. I call them "milligravity" objects ...
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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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When were the presence of specific elements on asteroids first identified?
Is there an approximation on when scientists first found out about certain elements on asteroids?
What about gold in particular?
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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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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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Resources on 129 Antigone
I am one of the cast members of an ongoing science-fiction podcast set in an asteroid settlement on 129 Antigone. The settlement is an O’Neill cylinder built from materials harvested from the asteroid,...
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Is there a method for finding the chemical composition of asteroids?
Any equations or research paper would be helpful.
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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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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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