Sentences with phrase «surface of a large asteroid»

NASA is currently developing concepts for the redirect mission that will employ a robotic spacecraft, driven by an advanced solar electric propulsion system, to capture a small near - Earth asteroid or remove a boulder from the surface of a larger asteroid.

This concept images shows ARM robotic capture Option B, in which the robotic vehicle ascends from the surface of a large asteroid, on its way to a lunar distant retrograde orbit with a smaller asteroid mass in its clutches.

In the 2020s, NASA's human spaceflight program will revolve around sending astronauts to high lunar orbit to study a small boulder robotically plucked from the surface of a large asteroid, agency officials announced yesterday.

Not exact matches

The density of the mammoth main - belt asteroid Ceres suggests it contains a large amount of water ice, but no clear - cut sign of ice has been found on its surface.

He also adds: «The tidal effect on an asteroid, which rapidly rotates under the gravitational field of a planet, can fragment these objects or release large rocks from its surface, which could then become such dangerous projectiles at a local scale as the one fell in Cheliábinsk (Russia) on February 15th 2013.»

«Now we know where not to point the camera,» says Cheng, referring to large shadowed regions of the asteroid's surface visible in the new images.

As expected, the simulations showed that the larger, 1 - km asteroid created the bigger splash, throwing 42 trillion kilograms of water and vapour — enough to fill 16 million Olympic - sized swimming pools — across an area more than 1000 kilometres wide and up to hundreds of kilometres above the Earth's surface.

However, if a large enough asteroid entered the atmosphere, instead of disintegrating it would pass through and hit the Earth's surface.

The world's two largest radio telescopes have combined to make detailed radar images of the cloud - shrouded surface of Venus and of a tiny asteroid that passed near the Earth.

While ice is not found at the surface of Ceres [the largest of all asteroids], there is evidence [the low density of Ceres] that a large ice ocean is present in its subsurface....»