Questions tagged [asteroid]
Questions about asteroids, bodies in the solar system smaller then planets which orbit the sun.
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What's next for Planetary Resources?
The company Planetary Resources had great success with their Arkyd-6 mission earlier this year and were recently purchased by a ConsenSys. I'm wondering if they have published any plans about future ...
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How was the standard of a potentially hazardous object (PHO) being determined?
I was going through an article about Bennu asteroid and OSIRIS-REx mission and done a quiz. There is an interesting question:
What's a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid?
a. One at least 500 feet wide ...
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How does the hopping mechanism of the Minerva II rovers work?
The Minerva II rovers deployed to Ryugu by Hayabusa 2 have gotten a lot of news coverage for their hopping method of locomotion. Is there public information on exactly how this works? I seem to recall ...
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How much asteroid can we divert from the Earth?
There are many movies with the Earth being saved by sending a bomb out blow up the asteroid. What realistically could we do to that degree today? Do we have interplanetary missiles? if so how much of ...
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Will asteroid 2015 YA have a collision with Venus in october 2018?
When you use the Small-Body Data Browser of JPL Solar System Dynamics and do the search for asteroid 2015 YA, and after that push the [ show orbit diagram ] button, you can see that on october 12, ...
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Can we remotely measure the age of `Oumuamua or Bee-Zed by measuring radioactive isotope ratios?
Radiometric dating such as radiocarbon dating is commonly used for measuring the age of rocks, including meteorites. This is normally an active in-situ measurement. But spectral differences between ...
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Sources for SPICE Kernel (SPK) files for asteroids
Besides the official source for SPK files (ftp://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/pub/eph ...) is there a place where people upload kernels for the smaller bodies in the solar system? I was looking for the Jupiter ...
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Would not getting asteroid 2013 ND$_1$$_5$ into a polar orbit be the easiest way for it to become a moon of Venus?
Notice:
Although this question is similar to this one, it is different because asteroid 2012 XE$_1$$_3$$_3$ has a transitional path between Venus's Lagrangian points L5 point and L3 point, whereas ...
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Could asteroid 2012 XE$_1$$_3$$_3$ become a moon of Venus with the aid of rocket engines?
2012 XE$_1$$_3$$_3$ is an asteroid, classified as near-Earth object of the Aten group that is a temporary co-orbital of Venus.
It is following a transitional path between Venus's Lagrangian points L$...
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How much will Bennu rotate faster and faster with mirrors facing the Sun on its left side?
Several answers to the question "Why paint only one-half of Bennu" describe the Yarkovsky effect as an important force acting on the asteroid 101955 Bennu.
But what about the radiation pressure of ...
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Could a Boring Company Excavation Tool be used to create a large circular chamber inside an asteroid?
I saw an awesome post by a user about 1g off-Earth habitats. Radiation protection is provided to humans when habitats have a lot of mass between habitation areas and sources of radiation. Long-term ...
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DLR Mascot asteroid lander's unusual "torque wheel-based" propulsion system
Soon the Japanese Hayabusa 2 mission will release the German "Mascot" Lander onto the surface of the asteroid. The small box shaped lander then impacts the surface and preforms science experiments. ...
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What does this paper say is wrong (quantitatively and procedurally) with WISE & NeoWISE asteroid data?
I don't have daily access to the journal Icarus so when I read the New York Times article Asteroids and Adversaries: Challenging What NASA Knows About Space Rocks; Two years ago, NASA dismissed and ...
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What is synthetic tracking, and why would a 35 cm Earth imager be 10-30x better than Pan-STARRS or LSST for interstellar asteroid discovery?
The ArXiv preprint Technical Note: Asteroid Detection Demonstration from SkySat-3 B612 Data using Synthetic Tracking is an interesting read! The abstract says:
We report results from analyzing the ...
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What Platinum minerals are expected to be found in Asteroids?
High quantities and values have been claimed for the Platinum and other high value metals in Asteroids - prompting (or perhaps in order to prompt) interest in mining them. Is this high value metal ...
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Can we expect to find pure iron or only nickel-iron alloys in asteroids?
Relatively pure iron has more uses and potential value than nickel-iron alloys. Separating those nickel-iron alloys commonly found in meteorites and expected to be common in asteroids (Kamecite, ...
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Is it possible for an asteroid to be captured by earth in such a way that it has minimal relative velocity?
Is it possible for a metal (or dirt/ice) asteroid of 1km average diameter to enter the Earth-Moon system in such a way that the asteroid behaves as if it were dropped from a height instead of as a ...
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Can plant/tree seeds come from other planets carried by Asteroids? [closed]
I've read that some plant and tree seeds can be cryogenically preserved for years, if not decades. However, I've not read of anyone considering the following theory: Could it be possible that our ...
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When should a rocket be launched to reach a Near Earth Asteroid like 2001 US16?
Earth takes 365.25 days to complete its orbit around the Sun. Earth also travels at 67000 mph.
Asteroid 2001 US16 (also known as 89136) takes 577 earth days to complete it's orbit around the Sun.
To ...
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What class of near-earth asteroids would be most feasible for colonization? [closed]
There are four types of near-earth asteroids:
Apollo class asteroids, with orbits that intersect Earth and semi-major axes larger than Earth's
Aten class asteroids, with orbits that intersect Earth ...
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Trojan Asteroids, are they Beneficial or Potentially Dangerous?
I know that Jupiter has a bunch of trailing asteroids surrounding it dubbed "Trojans". Due to its massive gravitational pull Jupiter is likely a co-creator of Earth in many ways, diverting asteroids ...
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Why paint only one-half of Bennu?
The Gizmodo article Instead of Nuking an Asteroid Headed Toward Earth, We Could Just Splash It With Paint says:
“Even just painting the surface a different color on one half would change the ...
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Asteroid Defense
Has SpaceX thought about landing on an asteroid, and deploying technology that can either redirect or disassemble an incoming asteroid to avoid or lesson the asteroids impact on earth?
I read NASA's ...
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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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Small-bodies landing strategies
Looking at past landing missions on small bodies such as Eros, Itokawa and 67P I found different landing strategies
Eros: NEAR Shoemaker probe performed 4 impulsive pre-planned open-loop maneuvers to ...
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Can an ion drive attached to an asteroid move it into another orbit if given enough power?
After watching one of the videos from Curious Droid on Youtube talking about asteroid deflection and strikes I had an idea. Ion thrusters provide bits of mass velocities at the needed Isp (5-6 km/s ...
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Clohessy - Wiltshere equations in electric propulsion
Further to my "asteroid chasing" question regarding the HCW equations (Clohessy - Wiltshire equations for use in Asteroid "chasing"), I was wondering if there was some transformation of ...
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Clohessy - Wiltshire equations for use in Asteroid "chasing"
So I'm actually a student studying this sorta thing, and an assignment I have is to chase/rendezvous with an asteroid. I've done my reading on the C-W equations (what little I could understand) and ...
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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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How satellites handle obstacles for short or long term missions
Do scientist consider small asteroid/stones/junk in space while sending satellites to orbit or for long range missions like for Mars?
If yes, then how can they identify the trajectory and prepare ...
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How predictable is one asteroid's trajectory?
If one fictitious probe mission was to impact an asteroid fast enough to destroy it using its kinetic energy, could the asteroid's trajectory be predicted accurately enough (plumes or emanations or ...
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Can we destroy an asteroid by spinning it?
In a YouTube video Colonizing the Solar System, part 2: the Outer Solar System, Isaac Arthur who is a YouTuber and also a physicist says something like "you don't spin an asteroid for artificial ...
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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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Why are low-albedo asteroids thought to be more water-rich?
In this talk, J. L. Galache mentions that asteroid miners are looking for NEAs with:
low delta-v (so the asteroid is easy to get to/from from Earth)
low synodic period (for frequent launch/return-...
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How can a planet “catch” an asteroid?
When an asteroid enters the sphere of influence of a planet and the periapsis is above the atmosphere (if it wasn't and the object doesn't leave the atmosphere at escape velocity, the object would ...
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Yikes! How did we miss 2017 VL2?
The Tech Times article NASA Fails To Spot Whale-Sized Asteroid That Skimmed Past Earth says that Asteroid 2017 VL2 passed the Earth within about 120,000 km, or about 1/3 the distance of the Moon on ...
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Asteroid Catalog
Where can one find asteroids or comets that contain water ice suitable for a human mission. Perhaps there is comprehensive catalog of small bodies that can be searched for characteristics such as:
...
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Can an asteroid enter Earth orbit?
Can an asteroid pass near Earth at a right velocity and angle to bend its trajectory and make an orbit?
Note: I know about objects such as 2016 HO3, which are quasi-satellites of Earth due to ...
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How effective are solar sails to deflect an asteroid?
This answer states that solar sails may deflect asteroids. I understand that the goal is to deflect an incoming asteroid enough to avoid collision. I assume painting the asteroid white may also ...
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Timing shadows from the Kuiper belt! Any news? Did it work?
update 24-Jun-2017: SOFIA Arrives in New Zealand to Observe Southern Skies There are plans to fly SOFIA through another predicted occultation path on July 17. SOFIA is a huge (2.5 meter dia.) infrared ...
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Theoretical Asteroid Composition and the economy
This is a question that I sort of view as an intersection between economics/science/space, completely hypothetical in nature, so I'm not sure if this is the right forum for it but, here goes:
I read ...
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How do we define geographical coordinates on non-spheroid celestial bodies?
On Earth, we can use latitude and longitude to fairly accurately describe a single point on the surface of the earth. This works because the earth is, for all intents and purposes, a sphere. It got me ...
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Is delay-doppler radar imaging of NEO asteroids possible only if it spins fast enough?
Emily Lakdawalla's blog on the Planetary Society's page explains some of the basic principles in the delay-doppler radar imaging of asteroids, and other astronomical bodies by extension.
Radar from a ...
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Spacecraft necessary to deflect extinction event asteroid?
It is believed that the end of the Cretaceous period of the Earth's geology was marked by an asteroid impact which caused a mass extinction event, known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene Extinction Event. ...
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How will the Lucy spacecraft move from Jupiter's L4 to its L5 Trojan asteroids?
After having visited the L4 leading Trojans ("Greeks") of Jupiter, almost a decade after launch Lucy will spend almost 4½ years moving on to the trailing L5 Trojans, 5 AU away. Is there a special ...
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How does the entry angle of a meteor affect the straight line distance traveled?
I'm trying to help a student solve the following problem:
A 15 meter in diameter asteroid with a mass of approximately 10,000 metric tons going 20 km/s. The entry and time for disintegration was 28 ...
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SpaceX ITS - going beyond Mars
Let's assume that Elon Musk's plan to go to Mars is a success and there are several spacecraft which regularly go to Mars and back.
At this point, how feasible would it be to start exploring the rest ...
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Does Bennu pose a risk to Earth? And how can OSIRIS-REx's mission save us?
OSIRIS-REx has launched and is on its way to 101955 Bennu to...
"determine Bennu's physical and chemical properties, which will be critical to know in the event of an impact mitigation mission".
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Would the one million people on Mars be killed by an impact equivalent to an Extinction Level Event on Earth
If there are cities on Mars in the second half of this century with say a million people, they will be living in engineered structures and sustained by agriculture in protected, controlled ...
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How far could material from Earth or Mars be transported due to asteroid impact?
NASA has issued reports to the effect that small bits of Mars have come to Earth due to asteroid impacts - asteroid hits Mars, chunks are ejected into space far enough to eventually fall into Earth's ...
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