SPACECRAFT BUZZES EARTH EN ROUTE TO ASTEROID0
- From Around the Web, Space
- September 21, 2017
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is going to fly past Earth on Sept. 22nd, sling-shotting itself toward a potentially hazardous asteroid named “Bennu.”
NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft is going to fly past Earth on Sept. 22nd, sling-shotting itself toward a potentially hazardous asteroid named “Bennu.”
With the help of the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, a German-led group of astronomers have observed the intriguing characteristics of an unusual type of object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter: two asteroids orbiting each other and exhibiting comet-like features, including a bright coma and a long tail. This is the first known binary asteroid also classified as a comet. The research is presented in a paper published in the journal Nature today.
For the first time, researchers have developed nanoscale quantum memory chips that store information in individual photons. The chips were able to store data for 75 nanoseconds before release, with a success rate of 97 percent.
A fleet of tiny spacecraft could visit over 300 asteroids in just over three years, according to a mission study led by the Finnish Meteorological Institute.
A new UFO video submitted to the Mutual UFO Network (MUFON) shows bright objects flying around the night sky. In a similar video recently taken in Arizona, it was speculated the objects were drones. However, this witness does not believe drones to be responsible for this sighting.
Animals in the Goldilocks zone — neither too big, nor too small, but just the right size — face a lower risk of extinction than do those on both ends of the scale
New Geological Society of America Bulletin paper
SpaceX’s robotic Dragon capsule was set loose from the International Space Station today and returned to Earth with more than 3,800 pounds of cargo and experiments, including a set of live mice that will be studied after their stint in zero gravity.