Sentences with phrase «instruments on asteroids»

The decision was about scientific merit and risk, says Jim Green, NASA's planetary division director in Washington, D.C. Psyche and Lucy will use tested instruments on asteroids with no atmospheres to contend with.

Space agencies might be able to place instruments on the asteroid's surface that could «tell us how potentially hazardous asteroids like Apophis are put together,» he says.

Not exact matches

It was spotted by the 0.9 - metre Spacewatch telescope on Kitt Peak, Arizona, one of the few instruments dedicated to searching for near - Earth asteroids.

Although no such asteroids were discovered, the scan demonstrated that a key instrument on board the spacecraft was functioned much better than expected.

However, if the measurements of the ancient ratios from SAM don't match up, this suggests that we may have to look at other ways the atmosphere could have been lost, such as giant impacts from asteroids,» says Mahaffy, who is Principal Investigator for SAM and Instrument Lead for the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer instrumentInstrument Lead for the Neutral Gas and Ion Mass Spectrometer instrumentinstrument on MAVEN.