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NASA asteroid sample capsule lands safely in Utah
NASA’s asteroid sample return mission OSIRIS-REx has landed on asteroid Bennu. It’s the first time that NASA has brought back a sample from an asteroid, but it is following in the footsteps of the Japanese space agency JAXA, which collected two asteroid samples in its Hayabusa and Hayabusa 2 missions. The asteroid material collected by…
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The science of smashing a space craft into a asteroid
NASA’s DART mission team has shared a picture of asteroid Dimorphos after it crashed into the Earth on January 10. The DART team said the transfer of momentum from Dimorphos’ surface to the spacecraft was 3.6 times greater if the asteroid had absorbed the spacecraft and no material was blasted from it. DART was launched…
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An asteroid is hiding in the sun’s glare.
NASA has conducted its first-ever test of deflecting an asteroid with a spacecraft. NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) aimed to change the motion of asteroid Dimorphos, which orbits Didymos. Researchers estimated that it will take about two months to determine if DART was successful in changing Dimorphos’ motion in space in humanity’s first test…