Sentences with phrase «rather small asteroid»

2016 TB57 is a rather small asteroid — about 50 to 115 feet (16 to 36 meters) in size — that will come closest to Earth on Oct. 31 at just beyond five times the distance of the moon.

Not exact matches

Astronomers say that incoming asteroids smaller than that would have a regional, rather than global, effect; ones that are less than about 180 feet are likely to disintegrate in the atmosphere.

Rather than random occurrences, many large airbursts might result from collisions between Earth and streams of debris associated with small asteroids or comets.

Officials in charge of NASA's Asteroid Redirect Mission announced that they will snatch a small boulder off an asteroid, as illustrated above, rather than bag up an entire aAsteroid Redirect Mission announced that they will snatch a small boulder off an asteroid, as illustrated above, rather than bag up an entire aasteroid, as illustrated above, rather than bag up an entire asteroidasteroid.

Ideas abounded: using ion engines to ferry up the components of a moon base; beaming power to robotic rovers on the Martian moon Phobos; attaching high - power Hall effect thrusters to the International Space Station (ISS) and putting it on a Mars cycler orbit; preplacing chemical rocket boosters along an interplanetary trajectory in advance so astronauts could pick them up along the way; using exploration pods like those in 2001: A Space Odyssey rather than space suits; instead of sending astronauts to an asteroid, bringing a (very small) asteroid to astronauts at the space station.

If the approaching spacecraft has to avoid plowing into smaller fragments, it would be a rather more graceful version of the famous asteroid - dodging sequence in Star Wars — fitting for a mission led by a jet jockey.