Category: Comets

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Neptune’s smallest moon may have been created by comets

sudshr47 February 21, 2019

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We’re all made of star stuff, but some things in the universe are created by comets.

Neptune’s recently discovered and smallest moon, Hippocamp, has been confirmed and observed in detail by the Hubble Space Telescope according to new research published in Nature on Wednesday.

Named Hippocamp for the half-horse, half-fish creature from Greek mythology — all of Neptune’s moons are named for Greek and Roman mythological figures — it’s the smallest of the planet’s seven inner moons, with a diameter of approximately 20-21 miles (34 kilometres).  Read more…

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That interstellar visitor from another solar system wasn’t an asteroid after all

sudshr47 June 27, 2018

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Scientists spotted a strange object flying through the solar system last year. It looked skinny, like a cigar, and may have been a quarter-mile in length.

They named it `Oumuamua, Hawaiian for “messenger from afar,” and after analyzing its trajectory, were sure it arrived from a distant solar system.

At first, scientists suspected it was a comet. But after the European Southern Observatory found no wake of dust and gas trailing behind it — the telltale signs of traveling comets — the International Astronomical Union classified it as a rocky asteroid. But that’s not the end of the story.

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Comets European Space Agency Rosetta Mission Solar System Space

Watch space dust shoot around a comet as it tumbles through our solar system

sudshr47 April 25, 2018

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The Rosetta spacecraft chased down the nearly three-mile-long Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet in 2014. It then spent almost two years capturing detailed images of the comet’s dust-ridden surface. 

The images are publicly available, which allowed Twitter user landru79 to compile a brilliant animation of images shot over a 25-minute period. Taken together, it gives us an idea of what it’s like on that rapidly spinning, oddly-shaped ball of dust and ice.

“This is the well familiar environment in which Rosetta observed for nearly two years — lots of dust flying around!” Matt Taylor, a European Space Agency (ESA) project scientist for the Rosetta mission, said over email.   Read more…

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Comets European Space Agency Rosetta Mission Solar System Space

Watch space dust shoot around a comet as it tumbles through our solar system

sudshr47 April 25, 2018

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The Rosetta spacecraft chased down the nearly three-mile-long Churyumov–Gerasimenko comet in 2014. It then spent almost two years capturing detailed images of the comet’s dust-ridden surface. 

The images are publicly available, which allowed Twitter user landru79 to compile a brilliant animation of images shot over a 25-minute period. Taken together, it gives us an idea of what it’s like on that rapidly spinning, oddly-shaped ball of dust and ice.

“This is the well familiar environment in which Rosetta observed for nearly two years — lots of dust flying around!” Matt Taylor, a European Space Agency (ESA) project scientist for the Rosetta mission, said over email.   Read more…

More about Space, Solar System, Comets, European Space Agency, and Rosetta Mission

View More Watch space dust shoot around a comet as it tumbles through our solar system
Comets Nasa Science Space Space Exploration

NASA mission finalists would take us to Saturn’s moon or a comet

sudshr47 December 20, 2017

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If you had your pick, where in the solar system would you send a spacecraft? To an asteroid? Venus? Maybe one of Saturn’s icy moons?

Well, NASA has some ideas about where it wants to go next. 

The space agency just announced the two finalists for one of its next big missions out into the solar system, and there are two destinations in mind: a comet or Titan, Saturn’s weird, icy moon.

“These are tantalizing investigations that seek to answer some of the biggest questions in our solar system today,” Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, said in a statement. Read more…

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An interstellar asteroid has been studied for the 1st time… and it looks really odd

sudshr47 November 20, 2017

In October, astronomers using a powerful telescope in Hawaii caught sight of something they’d never seen before: an asteroid from interstellar space hurtling through our solar system. 
Now, about a month later, we have some sense of what that fa…

View More An interstellar asteroid has been studied for the 1st time… and it looks really odd