ICY INTERIOR The solar system's first interstellar visitor might be a comet
rather than an asteroid.
Disrupting comets (white and red v's)
rather than asteroids (green) contribute most of the dust that makes up the zodiacal cloud (purple haze and inset).
Not exact matches
Rather than slowly amassing bulk over time, the original members of the
asteroid belt rapidly formed into rocks hundreds of kilometers across, researchers propose.
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.
Hu likens it to an
asteroid hitting a piece of paper: The paper is so light that,
rather than getting crushed, it is just pushed aside.
Commenting on the findings lead researcher Dr Roberto Raddi, of the University of Warwick's Astronomy and Astrophysics Group, said: «Our research has found that,
rather than being unique, water - rich
asteroids similar to those found in our Solar System appear to be frequent.
Another group has conducted experiments suggesting that the water at these depths was formed on Earth
rather than being delivered by comets and
asteroids.
«This is the strongest evidence from fossils that the main driver of this extinction event was the after - effects of a huge
asteroid impact,
rather than a slower decline caused by natural changes to the climate or by severe volcanism stressing global environments.»
Of those deportees, about 4 % came from within about 375 million kilometers of the sun, rendering them rock - or metal - rich bodies like
asteroids rather than icy orbs like comets, the researchers report online ahead of print in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Rather than random occurrences, many large airbursts might result from collisions between Earth and streams of debris associated with small
asteroids or comets.
But
rather than a monotonously uniform surface homogenized by impact cratering over the eons, the first up - close look at the
asteroid reveals a full palette of mineral «colors» (mapped here in false color reflecting the wide range of rock compositions).
Rather than catastrophic resurfacing that would take as little as 10 million years, Venus may have had gradual turnover of a thin crust stirred by mantle plumes or
asteroid collisions that renewed the surface 1 percent at a time over billions of years.
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 a
Asteroid Redirect Mission announced that they will snatch a small boulder off an
asteroid, as illustrated above, rather than bag up an entire a
asteroid, 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.
Since we commanded the Hubble Space Telescope to track Pluto during the imaging, objects not moving with Pluto (like stars and
asteroids) appear as streaks in the images,
rather than a point - like source moving with Pluto.
It looks like NASA's stepping - stone to Mars will be a miniature space station in lunar orbit
rather than a chunk of captured
asteroid.
Artist's conception of the Psyche mission, which would investigate a large unique metallic
asteroid called Psyche, which is composed of mostly iron and nickel,
rather than rock.
Bolden was grilled by subcommittee chairman Steve Palazzo (R - MS) and committee chairman Smith on why he was ignoring NAC's advice to (1) obtain an independent cost evaluation (ICE) of ARM prior to the Mission Concept Review (which just took place), and (2) modify it so that its primary objective is demonstration of high power solar electric propulsion
rather than obtaining a sample of an
asteroid, and to send the spacecraft to Mars and back
rather than to an
asteroid.
Fate has it that most of these wandering
asteroids are very dark and are often spotted later
rather than sooner by astronomers.
When Planetary Resources actually begins sending its first robotic prospectors to
asteroids, the company will concentrate on space rocks that are relatively close to Earth,
rather than heading out into the more distant
Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Then,
rather than looking at all of the
asteroids in this region, they narrowed their search to dark, carbon - rich
asteroids, which are not as common as bright
asteroids in this part of the belt.
A key result of the new work is the size of the impactor; we find that a large impactor — similar in size to the largest
asteroids Vesta and Ceres — is needed,
rather than a giant impactor.
* it:... specifically (as it had been mentioned before) I suggested that maybe it would be easier to get an
asteroid there
rather than shoot stuff up with a rail gun launch system (I think that's what was being discussed by others).
Makes sense, but has anyone got a good handle on the likelihood of encountering undetected «clouds of gravel»
rather than single
asteroids?
Why would we have reason to think most
asteroids are in one piece,
rather than thinking they come in all degress of crumbled - fragmented?
An
asteroid of this size might make one think of disaster movies, such as «Armageddon»; however, «
rather than destroying the Earth, it could be used to help mankind,» Bewick said.