Tag Archives: Solar System: Small SS Objects

Nucleobases in Asteroids

Posted on April 27, 2022 by jesszhang782

Nucleobases are the building blocks of DNA and RNA. There are five total nucleobases (adenine, thymine, cytosine, guanine, and uracil) and three of the five have been found in meteorites. Recently, the last two nucleobases have also been identified. Th… Continue reading →

Posted in Class | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Nucleobases in Asteroids

Halley’s Comet

Posted on March 20, 2022 by jesszhang782

Halley’s Comet was the first comet understood to be a periodic comet, or a comet that can pass through the solar system multiple times. The English astronomer Edmund Halley (1656-1742) noticed that the previously recorded orbits of three comets were ve… Continue reading →

Posted in Class, Historical | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Halley’s Comet

Comets: A Bunch of “Dirty Snowballs”

Posted on April 17, 2021 by captivatingcomet

It is only right to dedicate a blog post to the very things that inspired my username: comets! Comets are small objects that orbit the Sun and tend to have more eccentric orbits than other bodies in the solar system. A comet consists of a nucleus, coma, ion tail, and dust tail. The nucleus is solidContinue reading “Comets: A Bunch of “Dirty Snowballs”” Continue reading →

Posted in Class, Observables | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on Comets: A Bunch of “Dirty Snowballs”

Ultima Thule

Posted on April 7, 2019 by victoriayaden

The New Horizons space probe was launched in 2006—primarily to study Pluto, but also to study Kuiper belt objects in its following years. Following the space probe’s flyby of Pluto in 2015, it reached 2014 MU69, also known as Ultima Thule, on January 1, 2019. Ultima Thule is a Kuiper belt object that orbits 1.6 […] Continue reading →

Posted in Instruments, Space Travel | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Ultima Thule

Recent Landslides on Ceres display Ice Content

Posted on April 27, 2017 by njelinek425

A series of landslides on Ceres’ surface has been photographed last week, displaying solid evidence for frozen water comprising a sizable portion of its composition. Images displayed three different types of landslide classifications. Type I landslides are relatively round and large, similar to rock glaciers and landslides found on Earth. These landslides are found at […] Continue reading →

Posted in General | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Recent Landslides on Ceres display Ice Content

New Horizons Probe Halfway Between Pluto and Its Next Target in Kuiper Belt

Posted on April 4, 2017 by njelinek425

Just today, (April 4) the NASA probe New Horizons reached its halfway point between the Pluto system and its next target in the Kuiper belt, the small object 2014 MU69. 2014 MU69 is a trans-Plutonian, rather small Kuiper Belt object; with an average diameter of only about 30 miles it is only about 1% the size of […] Continue reading →

Posted in Class, General, Space Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on New Horizons Probe Halfway Between Pluto and Its Next Target in Kuiper Belt

Blog #5

Posted on April 4, 2017 by niharikadar

An Overview of the New Horizons Mission The Kuiper Belt is a very fascinating region of our solar system consisting largely of icy bodies and comets. Thus, there is a lot of really interesting research aiming to better understand the Belt itself and the objects that call it home. One NASA initiative in this regard is … Continue reading Blog #5 Continue reading →

Posted in Instruments | Tagged , , , , | Comments Off on Blog #5

Explore Vesta with Vesta Trek

Posted on March 31, 2015 by robbyks

Today, NASA released Vesta Trek, a free web-based application that provides a detailed visualization of Vesta, one of the largest asteroids in the Solar System. This was made possible by NASA’s Dawn spacecraft, which studied Vesta from July 2011 to September 2012. This application includes interactive maps, the ability to print Vesta in a 3-D printer, […] Continue reading →

Posted in Instruments | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Explore Vesta with Vesta Trek