Archives for the 'asteroids' Category
25399 Vonnegut
Published on 12 Apr 2007 at 1:32 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under asteroids.
Apparently Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) passed away yesterday. Being an avid scifi reader, I’ve read some of his works (though he wrote far more than just scifi!). I could write about his work, but others are doing that, I am sure. So, I decided to say something that you might not know. […]
Juno at opposition
Published on 10 Apr 2007 at 4:52 pm.
No Comments.
Filed under asteroids.
Today, Earth is between the asteroid 3 Juno and the Sun. That means that the asteroid appears opposite the Sun in the sky, as seen from Earth. We call this orientation “opposition” for obvious reasons. At opposition, a body rises at sunset and sets at sunrises. It is highest in the […]
2007 EH: Another near miss
Published on 28 Mar 2007 at 7:05 am.
5 Comments.
Filed under asteroids.
Six months ago, I wrote about 2006 QM111, which passed close to Earth. It was discovered just hours before closest approach. It then came within half the Moon’s distance from Earth. At the time, I pointed out that such an event is not really all that rare. There are a LOT […]
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How YORP Works
Published on 8 Mar 2007 at 11:45 pm.
3 Comments.
Filed under asteroids, physics.
There’s been talk lately about YORP. It even made a major non-science news site. So, what is YORP, and what does it do? Well, YORP is basically an extension of the Yorkovsky Effect that I blogged about back a bit over five months ago. In fact, the “Y” in YORP stands […]
99942 Apophis
Published on 27 Jan 2007 at 12:50 pm.
29 Comments.
Filed under asteroids.
In June of 2004, Roy Tucker, David Tholen, and Fabrizio Bernardi discovered an asteroid. This particular asteroid was give the provisional designation 2004 MN4. Asteroids are discovered all the time, and normally, while cool for the ones discovering them, they don’t make much in the way of news. This one was different. […]
3200 Phaethon: Asteroid or Dead Comet?
Published on 1 Dec 2006 at 3:41 pm.
6 Comments.
Filed under asteroids, comets, meteors.
Comets are icy bodies that form in the outermost parts of the Solar System. Sometimes their orbits are disturbed, and they swing close to the Sun. When this happens, the ices (frozen water, frozen carbon dioxide, frozen methane, frozen ammonia, etc) begin to sublimate and shoot off, giving rise to a pretty blue […]
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Send your name to the asteroid belt
Published on 1 Nov 2006 at 12:27 am.
5 Comments.
Filed under NASA, asteroids.
I saw this on Tom’s Astronomy Blog, and thought that I’d say a bit about it. NASA is preparing to launch a spacecraft to the asteroid belt. On board the spacecraft will be a microchip with names saved on it. So, click on the banner here and you can have your name […]
