Asteroids

Blogs about asteroids

A sample from asteroid Bennu (Photo courtesy Yasuhiro Oba)

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Two articles, one published in the journal “Nature” and one in “Nature Astronomy” report the results of examinations of samples from asteroid Bennu with the discovery of the presence of all the DNA and RNA bases and 14 of the 20 amino acids present on Earth. Two teams of researchers analyzed these samples, which were collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space probe, which brought them back to Earth. Building blocks of life were also found in samples from the asteroid Ryugu brought back to Earth by the Hayabusa 2 space probe and the ones found in the samples brought back from Bennu offer new confirmation that the Earth may have been “seeded” by asteroids.

The Hera space probe blasting off atop a Falcon 9 rocket (Image courtesy SpaceX)

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Yesterday, ESA’s Hera space probe blasted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from the Cape Canaveral together with the two nanosatellites Juventas and Milani. After about 76 minutes, it successfully separated from the rocket’s last stage and set on its course which in almost exactly two years will take it to the asteroid Didymos and its moon Dimorphos to examine the consequences of the impact of NASA’s DART spacecraft.

Kuiper Belt Objects (Image created with NightCafé)

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An article accepted for publication in the “Planetary Science Journal” reports the detection of 239 candidate trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). NASA’s New Horizons Kuiper Belt search team discovered the candidates using the Subaru telescope in Hawaii. Estimates indicate that the candidates are located at distances up to 90 times that of the Earth from the Sun. This supports the theory that the Kuiper Belt is wider than expected or that there’s a second Kuiper Belt further out.

An image of the asteroid Dimorphos (a) with a magnified area (b) that was analyzed in one of the articles and a mapping of the fractures of the boulders (c)

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Five articles published in the journal “Nature Communications” report different analyses of data collected by NASA’s DART spacecraft and the Italian Space Agency’s LICIACube nanosatellite that accompanied it on its mission that ended with the collision with Dimorphos, a small satellite asteroid of Didymos, which occurred on September 26, 2022. Various teams of researchers with members in common offered possible reconstructions of the processes that led to the formation of the pair of asteroids and their characteristics. These studies are connected to the defense of the Earth from asteroid impacts.

At the top left a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu and in the subsequent panels increasingly zoomed views of a fragment that broke off along a bright vein that contains phosphate, captured under an electron microscope

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An article published in the journal “Meteoritics & Planetary Science” reports the results of the preliminary analysis of the samples of material from asteroid Bennu brought back to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx space probe. A team of researchers conducted morphological and chemical analyzes of the samples, finding a lot of carbon and nitrogen together with organic compounds, all very important components for life forms of the Earth’s type.

The surprise came from the discovery of magnesium-sodium phosphate, which wasn’t detected by the instruments aboard OSIRIS-REx. This compound forms in water-rich environments and suggests that Bennu may be a fragment of a primordial world that had an ocean. The researchers mentioned Enceladus, Saturn’s moon with a subterranean ocean where sodium phosphate was found, and suggest a possible link to Bennu.