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Hot Topic
Solar System
Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids
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The Art of Asteroid Avoidance
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
04/25/06 |
| Over the last few decades there has been a great deal of debate about the level of danger posed by impacts from asteroids and comets. It appears the world needs to take the threat of asteroid strikes a lot more seriously. |
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Daughters of Deep Impact
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
04/23/06 |
| Over the past five years, three space missions -- Deep Impact, Deep Space 1 and Stardust -- have provided unprecedented information about comets. |
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Deflecting Don Quijote
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
04/08/06 |
| If a large asteroid such as the recently identified 2004 VD17 about 500 m in diameter with a mass of nearly 1000 million tonnes - collides with the Earth it could spell disaster for much of our planet. As part of ESA s Near-Earth Object deflecting mission Don Quijote, three teams of European industries are now carrying out studies on how to prevent this. |
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The 250,000 Ton Punch
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
04/04/06 |
| Over the weekend of 9-10 July 2005 a team of UK and US scientists, led by Dr. Dick Willingale of the University of Leicester, used NASAE28099s Swift satellite to observe the collision of NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft with comet Tempel 1. The Swift observations show that the comet grew brighter and brighter in X-ray light after the impact, with the X-ray outburst lasting a total of 12 days. |
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Life in Tiny Tunnels?
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
03/26/06 |
| A new study of a meteorite that originated from Mars has revealed a series of microscopic tunnels that are similar in size, shape and distribution to tracks left on Earth rocks by feeding bacteria. |
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Are We Drinking Comet Water?
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
03/24/06 |
| Three icy comets orbiting among the rocky asteroids in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter may hold clues to the origin of Earth's oceans. |
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Fire in the Ice
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
03/15/06 |
| Scientists have analyzed some of the particles captured by NASA's Stardust mission and returned to Earth earlier this year. And they've found a big surprise. Although the particles come from a comet that formed in the deep-frozen outer reaches of the solar system, they contain minerals that could only have been created near the sun. |
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PETing Stardust
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
02/26/06 |
| Scientists routinely examine extraterrestrial material that has fallen to Earth as meteorites, but never before NASA's Stardust mission have they had access to verified samples of a comet. The leftover debris from the formation of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago, comets consist mostly of ice, dust and rock. |
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Earth's Iron Building Blocks
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
02/19/06 |
| Iron meteorites are probably the surviving fragments of the long-lost asteroid-like bodies that formed the Earth and other nearby rocky planets, according to researchers from Southwest Research Institute® (SwRI®) and Observatoire de la Cote d'Azur in Nice, France. Their findings are described in the Feb.16 issue of Nature. |
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Icy Tempel
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| Topic: Meteorites, Comets and Asteroids |
02/10/06 |
| Comet Tempel 1, which created a flamboyant Fourth of July fireworks display in space last year, is covered with a small amount of water ice. These results, reported by members of NASA's Deep Impact team in an online edition of Science, offer the first definitive evidence of surface ice on any comet. |
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