Tag Archives: asteroid belt

‘Freakish’ asteroid discovered, resembles rotating lawn sprinkler

Astronomers have discovered a “weird and freakish object” resembling a rotating lawn sprinkler in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. The find, reported online in the Nov. 7 issue of the Astrophysical Journal Letters, has left them scratching their heads and searching for an explanation for the strange asteroid’s out-of-this-world appearance.

Normal asteroids appear simply as tiny points of light. This bizarre asteroid has six comet-like tails of dust radiating from it like spokes on a wheel. (more…)

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Asteroid Vesta Has Unique ‘Space Weathering’

Space weathering — a darkening of lunar surfaces by solar wind and metal nanoparticles from vaporized meteorites — appears to happen differently on Vesta, the largest body in the asteroid belt. The discovery, from NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, has planetary geologists returning to their lunar data for another look and further analysis.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. [Brown University] — The surface of the giant asteroid Vesta is weathering in a way that appears to be completely different from any other asteroid yet visited, according to new data recorded by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft. This new type of space weathering suggests that there’s something about Vesta — perhaps its mineral composition or its position in the solar system — that makes its surface environment fundamentally different from other asteroids studied thus far.

The new data are presented in a paper published Nov. 1, 2012, in the journal Nature. (more…)

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Dawn Reaches Milestone Approaching Asteroid Vesta

PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has reached its official approach phase to the asteroid Vesta and will begin using cameras for the first time to aid navigation for an expected July 16 orbital encounter. The large asteroid is known as a protoplanet — a celestial body that almost formed into a planet.

At the start of this three-month final approach to this massive body in the asteroid belt, Dawn is 1.21 million kilometers (752,000 miles) from Vesta, or about three times the distance between Earth and the moon. During the approach phase, the spacecraft’s main activity will be thrusting with a special, hyper-efficient ion engine that uses electricity to ionize and accelerate xenon. The 12-inch-wide ion thrusters provide less thrust than conventional engines, but will provide propulsion for years during the mission and provide far greater capability to change velocity. (more…)

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