Tag Archives: asteroid

Florida Asteroid Burning Up

Posted on April 15, 2021 by mwdobson3

On Monday April 13th, a small asteroid was spotted in the night sky off the east coast of Florida. One of my family members was all the way across the state on the western side of Florida and saw the asteroid’s fireball-like appearance as it passed by Earth over 26,000 km away. According to theContinue reading “Florida Asteroid Burning Up” Continue reading →

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Asteroid Mining

Posted on April 11, 2021 by gracelearnsspace

Asteroids are failed planetesimals made up of rock and metals, some of which may be valuable such as platinum, silver, and gold. Around 8% of the asteroids in the asteroid belt are ones full of precious metals. Some platinum heavy asteroids may contain 175 times the amount of platinum mined yearly on Earth. For this […] Continue reading →

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Large Asteroid Flyby on April 29th

Posted on March 29, 2020 by Phillip Yoon

If you’ve been scrolling through random news articles over the past few weeks, you may have come across an article about a large asteroid that may end human civilization if it strikes the Earth. Just to be clear, this asteroid will not hit Earth and will barely have any effect on civilization. NASA is currentlyContinue reading “Large Asteroid Flyby on April 29th” Continue reading →

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Oumuamua – space rock or spaceship?

Posted on January 23, 2018 by justinrstevens

Some scientists called it an asteroid.  Others theorized that it was an alien spacecraft.  Still others cast it off as a mere “space cucumber.” This mysterious space rock known as Oumuamua (Hawaiian for “first messenger”) has captivated scientists since its discovery in mid-October of 2017.  Oumuamua was discovered in Hawaii, hence its awesome name. This…

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Ceres Harbors Building Blocks of Life

Posted on April 24, 2017 by abbeyroth

Ceres, the largest asteroid in the Solar System, and now considered a dwarf planet, may have once been habitable. NASA’s Dawn spacecraft collected samples from the surface and were found to contain organic compounds and amino acids, which are often referred to as the building blocks of life. Dawn has also discovered evidence of a subsurface… Continue reading Ceres Harbors Building Blocks of Life Continue reading →

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Meteor, Meteorite & Asteroid… What is the difference?

Posted on April 3, 2017 by mariabulanova

We often misuse words such as meteor, meteorite, and asteroid while talking about space and not realizing that these three things are actually different! In this post I will explain the difference between all of them. What are meteors? Meteors are objects that enter the Earth’s atmosphere from space. Sometimes they are called “shooting stars”, […] Continue reading →

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Ida and Dactyl

Posted on April 2, 2017 by Nick Belsten

243 Ida is a 56 km long asteroid orbiting in the main asteroid belt with a number of notable features. Ida is an S-type asteroid, or stony asteroid, and is mostly composed of rock and iron from accretion during early solar system formation. Ida was a subject of study by the Galileo spacecraft in 1993, … Continue reading Ida and Dactyl → Continue reading →

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Blog #3: Asteroid Mining

Posted on February 14, 2017 by andrewsolarsystem

We commonly think of asteroids simply as left over debris from when the planets were formed, but researchers believe that we will be able to harness resources from them within the next 10 years. The most common type of asteroid, C-type, contains up to 20% water as well as various metals. The presence of water […] Continue reading →

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Where did all the dinosaurs go?

Posted on April 7, 2016 by sarabkeller

I think one of the more fascinating topics in Earth’s past is the mystery of the dinosaurs. They were here 65 million years ago (for a shockingly long time—if you remember, they were here for almost a week in the “calendar” of the universe!) and then suddenly disappeared. So, what happened to them? It is […] Continue reading →

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Blog #6 The Future of Mining

Posted on March 15, 2016 by seanmcsolsys

Due to Earth being a terrestrial planet, much of our world’s material falls into the categories of rock and metal. An incredible motivator through humanity’s history has been our love of gold, silver, platinum and now other rare earth metals. We have been willing to blast open mountains and strip open land in the quest […] Continue reading →

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