Related topics: earth , solar system , comet , meteorite
Asteroid
hideAsteroids, sometimes called minor planets or planetoids, are small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun, especially in the inner Solar System; they are smaller than planets but larger than meteoroids. The term "asteroid" has historically been applied primarily to bodies in the inner Solar System since the outer Solar System was poorly known when it came into common usage. The distinction between asteroids and comets is made on visual appearance: Comets show a perceptible coma while asteroids do not.
For more information about Asteroid, read the full article at
Wikipedia.
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News tagged with asteroid
Close-up photos of dying star show our sun's fate (w/ Video)
Dec 15, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- About 550 light-years from Earth, a star like our Sun is writhing in its death throes. Chi Cygni has swollen in size to become a red giant star so large that it would swallow every planet ...
Study of first high-resolution images of Pallas confirms asteroid is actually a protoplanet
Oct 12, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Britney E. Schmidt, a UCLA doctoral student in the department of Earth and space sciences, wasn't sure what she'd glean from images of the asteroid Pallas taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. ...
New aluminum-water rocket propellant promising for future space missions
Nanotechnology / Nanomaterials
Oct 07, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers are developing a new type of rocket propellant made of a frozen mixture of water and "nanoscale aluminum" powder that is more environmentally friendly than conventional propellants ...
How to Make a Planet: Spitzer Spots Clump of Swirling Planetary Material
Sep 23, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have witnessed odd behavior around a young star. Something, perhaps another star or a planet, appears to be pushing a clump of planet-forming material around. The observations, ...
Researchers make rare meteorite find using new camera network in Australian desert
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Sep 17, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Researchers have discovered an unusual kind of meteorite in the Western Australian desert and have uncovered where in the Solar System it came from, in a very rare finding published today ...
California's Channel Islands hold evidence of Clovis-age comets
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jul 20, 2009 |
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A 17-member team has found what may be the smoking gun of a much-debated proposal that a cosmic impact about 12,900 years ago ripped through North America and drove multiple species into extinction.
Contrary to recent hypothesis, 'chevrons' are not evidence of megatsunamis
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Apr 29, 2009 |
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A persistent school of thought in recent years has held that so-called "chevrons," large U- or V-shaped formations found in some of the world's coastal areas, are evidence of megatsunamis caused by asteroids ...
Solar wind tans young asteroids
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Apr 22, 2009 |
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A new study published in Nature this week reveals that asteroid surfaces age and redden much faster than previously thought -- in less than a million years, the blink of an eye for an asteroid. This study ...
Solar systems around dead Suns?
Apr 20, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers have found that at least 1 in 100 white dwarf stars show evidence of orbiting asteroids and rocky planets, suggesting ...
Team Finds Riches in Meteorite Treasure Hunt
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 31, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Just before dawn on Oct. 7, 2008, an SUV-sized asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere and exploded harmlessly over the Nubian Desert of northern Sudan. Scientists expected the asteroid, called ...
Asteroid Impact Helps Trace Meteorite Origins
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 25, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The car-sized asteroid that exploded above the Nubian Desert last October was small compared to the dinosaur-killing, civilization-ending objects that still orbit the sun. But that didn't ...
Space rock gives Earth a close shave
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Mar 03, 2009 |
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An asteroid of a similar size to a rock that exploded above Siberia in 1908 with the force of a thousand atomic bombs whizzed close past Earth on Monday, astronomers said on Tuesday.
Scientists Find Asteroids Are Missing, and Possibly Why
Space & Earth / Space Exploration
Feb 25, 2009 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- The patterns of missing asteroids are like the footprints of wandering giant planets preserved in the asteroid belt.
Half-baked asteroids have Earth-like crust
Space & Earth / Earth Sciences
Jan 07, 2009 |
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Asteroids are hunks of rock that orbit in the outer reaches of space, and scientists have generally assumed that their small size limited the types of rock that could form in their crusts. But two newly discovered ...
Solar System's Young Twin Has Two Asteroid Belts
Oct 27, 2008 |
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(PhysOrg.com) -- Astronomers have discovered that the nearby star Epsilon Eridani has two rocky asteroid belts and an outer icy ring, making it a triple-ring system. The inner asteroid belt is a virtual twin ...
