Comets/Asteroids

Credit: Jacob Kegerreis, Durham University. Earth could have lost anywhere between ten and 60 per cent of its atmosphere in the collision that is thought to have formed the Moon. New research led by Durham University, UK,…

Credit: NAOJ A study of comet motions indicates that the Solar System has a second alignment plane. Analytical investigation of the orbits of long-period comets shows that the aphelia of the comets, the point where they are farthest from…

Scientists utilized citizen science network to observe the objectCredit: Southwest Research Institute SAN ANTONIO -- Sept. 28, 2020 -- A new study authored by Southwest Research In-stitute scientists Rodrigo Leiva and Marc Buie reveals the…

Credit: Modified after Koike et al. (2020) EPSL Researchers have shaken up a once accepted timeline for cataclysmic events in the early solar system. About 4.5 Ga (giga-anum, or billion years ago), as a large disc of dust…

ESA's Rosetta mission discovers unique aurora at Comet 67P/Churyumov-GerasimenkoCredit: ESA/Rosetta/NAVCAM SAN ANTONIO -- Sept. 21, 2020 -- Data from Southwest Research Institute-led instruments aboard ESA's Rosetta spacecraft have…

Credit: ESA (spacecraft: ESA/ATG medialab) In the aurora borealis on Earth, electrically charged particles of the solar wind move along the Earth's magnetic field. At high latitudes, these strike nitrogen and oxygen atoms and…

Different kinds of rocks on Ryugu provide clues to the asteroid's turbulent historyCredit: © 2020 Tatsumi et al. The asteroid Ryugu may look like a solid piece of rock, but it's more accurate to liken it to an orbiting pile of rubble.…

First-ever measurements provide evidence that extremely cold liquid water exists in two distinct structures that co-exist and vary in proportion dependent on temperatureCredit: Timothy Holland, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory …

Credit: ESA After contributing to Rosetta Mission, in 2024 Politecnico di Milano will be back to deep space. That year ESA, the European Space Agency, will launch the Hera spacecraft towards binary asteroid Didymos, the smallest…

Stellar chemical compositions used as proxy for potentially habitable systemsCredit: NASA/JPL-Caltech SAN ANTONIO -- Sept. 16, 2020 -- A Southwest Research Institute scientist has identified stellar phosphorus as a probable marker…

Meteorite study calls into doubt a popular theory about the early solar systemCredit: © Sano et al. Around 4 billion years ago, the solar system was far less hospitable than we find it now. Many of the large bodies we know and love…

Credit: Lockheed Martin The University of Colorado Boulder and Lockheed Martin will soon lead a new space mission to capture the first-ever closeup look at a mysterious class of solar system objects: bin The University of…

While studying asteroid Bennu up close, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft witnessed periodic outbursts of material being kicked up from the surface; a dedicated observation campaign revealed details of the activity and the processes likely…

In January 2019, NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was orbiting asteroid Bennu when the spacecraft's cameras caught something unexpected: Thousands of tiny bits of material, some just the size of marbles, began to bounce off the surface of…

Credit: M. Brozovic/JPL-Caltech/NASA/University of Arizona It's 5 o'clock somewhere - and while here on Earth, "happy hour" is commonly associated with winding down and the optional cold beverage, that's when things get going on Bennu, the…

Research uses data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx missionCredit: NASA/GSFC/University of Arizona SAN ANTONIO -- Sept. 9, 2020 -- A new study published this month in JGR Planets posits that the major particle ejections off the near-Earth…

Credit: Qing-zhu Yin, UC Davis New studies of a rare type of meteorite show that material from close to the Sun reached the outer solar system even as the planet Jupiter cleared a gap in the disk of dust and gas from which the…

Understanding the origins of extremely oblique orbital angles such as these could help reveal details about the planetary formation processCredit: Credit: ESO/L. Calçada, Exeter/Kraus et al. Washington, DC-- The discovery that our…

Scientist will study spectral characteristics of small Koronis asteroids and Trojan-like asteroids in the main beltCredit: Courtesy Northern Arizona University The majority of asteroids in our solar system are found in the Main…

SwRI also contributing to two additional mission concept design studiesCredit: Southwest Research Institute SAN ANTONIO -- Sept. 2, 2020 -- A Southwest Research Institute proposal to study the Sun's poles -- considered among the last…