Asteroid Bennu—the target of NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return mission, led by the University of Arizona—is a mixture of materials from throughout, and even beyond, our solar system. Over the past few billion years, its ...
Astronomy
Aug 22, 2025
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New NASA research has found that Ceres may have had a lasting source of chemical energy: the right types of molecules needed to fuel some microbial metabolisms. Although there is no evidence that microorganisms ever existed ...
Astrobiology
Aug 20, 2025
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A Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) review of data collected from near-Earth asteroids Bennu and Ryugu supports the hypothesis that they were originally part of the Polana collisional family in the main asteroid belt between ...
Planetary Sciences
Aug 18, 2025
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A mysterious extraterrestrial visitor now has a permanent home and identity, thanks to University of Georgia researchers.
Planetary Sciences
Aug 11, 2025
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ESA's Hera mission has captured images of asteroids (1126) Otero and (18805) Kellyday. Though distant and faint, the early observations serve as both a successful instrument test and a demonstration of agile spacecraft operations ...
Astronomy
Aug 7, 2025
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Astronomers have discovered the earliest seeds of rocky planets forming in the gas around a baby sun-like star, providing a precious peek into the dawn of our own solar system.
Astronomy
Jul 20, 2025
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How did Earth, alone among the solar system's rocky planets, become the home for life? How, among all this frigid lifelessness, did our planet become warm, hospitable, and life-sustaining? The answer to these questions is ...
Astrobiology
Jul 8, 2025
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68
Predicting the precise path of a new asteroid or comet is a complex affair; the more observations you have, the better you know where an object will be, years hence.
Astronomy
Jul 7, 2025
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A small, inconspicuous meteorite may be about to change our understanding of how and when our solar system formed. Tiny shavings from the meteorite Northwest Africa 12264 are challenging the long-held belief that planets ...
China's Tianwen-2 probe continues on its journey to rendezvous with a near-Earth asteroid (NEA) before heading to the main asteroid belt. The second in China's interplanetary exploration program (which translates to "Questions ...
Planetary Sciences
Jul 3, 2025
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