Questions tagged [asteroids]

Questions regarding relatively small rocky bodies in an orbit around the Sun.

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What's the number density of `Oumuamua like objects?

Recently, the fly-through the Solar system of the inter-stellar object (ISO) `Oumuamua caused quite a stir in the astronomy community. I wonder whether there are reliable estimates for the (local) ...
Walter's user avatar
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5 votes
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Which citizen science occultation experiences were done in the late 80's in the US? With what results?

The news story "A star eclipsed by an asteroid in France this week-end: how and why scientists ask you to observe it" (in French) relates how people were are asked to look at the occultation ...
Jean-Marie Prival's user avatar
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How do the giant planets excite the orbits of asteroids?

The giant planets, particularly Jupiter, are notorious for bringing about changes in eccentricities and inclinations of smaller bodies(asteroids and KBOs). Jupiter, in fact, throws almost all the ...
Ambica Govind's user avatar
5 votes
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How often do comet occultations of stars happen?

By travelling to specific places, astronomers can see three thousand star comet transition events every year at m15 for the major (50km+) comets and asteroids averaging about 20 seconds, perhaps that'...
bandybabboon's user avatar
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First satellite of an asteroid (or double asteroid) ever imaged by delay-Doppler radar?

In comments about my previous bounty on the Space SE question Which deep-space spacecraft flew closest by Earth during a gravitational assist?, I started to look at the Galileo mission and ran across ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Help identifying a very slow-moving object during meteor shower photography

I just wonder if anyone could shed any light on this puzzle. Two nights ago whilst I was out photographing the Lyrids meteor shower from the UK something else showed up on my images when I checked ...
Harvey Shelley's user avatar
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What does "Secondary reflection from Didymos may allow imaging of the night side of Dimorphos" mean? Why useful? Imaged from where?

@ConnorGarcia's "impactful" answer to Why did they decide to hit Dimorphos in the retrograde direction rather than prograde; was it a "coin-toss" or were there implications for ...
uhoh's user avatar
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3 votes
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Other side of Earth when the Dinosaur-killer struck

When the (Chicxulub) asteroid hit Yucatan, what was it like in the minutes, days and weeks afterward on distant locations on Earth? Related How loud was the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs?
stretch's user avatar
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3 votes
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What do we know about the relation of shape to size in asteroids?

Have enough good measurements been made of small asteroids to gather interesting statistics about roundness? Perhaps a scatter chart of each body's greatest and least diameter?
Anton Sherwood's user avatar
2 votes
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creating asteroid light curves and analysing them

I came across the video Tutorial: Creating a Lightcurve of a Minor Planet linked below by Tycho Tracker, which itself is a software to build an asteroid light curve from raw images and analyse it to ...
mysterium's user avatar
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Orbital resonance 2:1

I considered the motion of an asteroid around the sun, in a $2:1$ orbital resonance with Jupiter. Following the study of this resonance, it was observed that the angle between the major axis of the ...
Augustin's user avatar
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Is there a collection or list of all planned observations of 99942 Apophis during its 2021 close pass to Earth?

For example, I found Goldstone Radar Observations Planning: 99942 Apophis in 2021 and 99942 Apophis 2021; Planned, Scheduled and Completed Observations at lawn.com? which seems empty. But I'll bet the ...
uhoh's user avatar
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Are there any moons of minor planets that orbit at high inclination to the plane of rotation of the parent body?

It occurred to me that one of the ringed asteroids or minor planets may answer this question about the alignment of planetary rings. However, it appears that the rings of Chariklo, Haumea and Chiron (...
Dave Gremlin's user avatar
2 votes
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Identify moving object in the sky at night?

Last night in the Carribean, I was looking at the sky at about 8PM EST, and I noticed this really tiny object moving pretty fast from left to right, just between the two stars in the photo. It's very ...
rbhat's user avatar
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Asteroid identification in fits image

I have a fits image, and I need to identify an asteroid. What characteristics do I look out for?
user25951's user avatar
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What is the average Ni-Fe crystal length in iron meteorites?

Iron-core meteorites display an awesome criss-cross pattern known as the Widmanstätten pattern, shown below: (photo by Dr. Patrick M. Len, taken from Wikipedia) I TA for an intro-level astronomy/...
jvriesem's user avatar
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2 votes
1 answer
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Do planetary magnetic fields slow the movement of conductive extraplanetary moving objects via induction?

A fixed magnetic field will induce an electrical current in a conductive object moving through the field. The strength of the eddy currents will depend on the shape and composition of the conductor ...
Willk's user avatar
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Power law of object mass in Milky way

Red dwarfs are more common than larger stars. Does this trend continue to smaller objects? If you take every "condensed object" from dust grains through asteroids, planets, and stars in the ...
Kevin Kostlan's user avatar
1 vote
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Curated dataset of labelled images for NEO detection

I am looking for a dataset of images. Some images should contain NEO's (1 or more), others should not. With the dataset, there should also be an accompanying file, of which should contain 'labels'. ...
pookie's user avatar
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How does the rock Simurgh Saxum (-25.32°, 4.05°) on 101955 Bennu define its prime meridian and serve as the basis for its coordinate system?

Spaceref's NASA's "Tour of Asteroid Bennu" Selected for Prestigious Computer Graphics Film Festival says: It's hard to imagine what the surface of asteroid Bennu might look like - it's ...
uhoh's user avatar
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1 vote
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Observed meteors on Venus?

In an article on Venus by JPL from 1996 I read Due to the dense Venusian atmosphere, primary impact craters of less than a 3 kilometer (2 mile) diameter are nonexistent. I am now wondering whether ...
B--rian's user avatar
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Will the United States Presidential Election (day asteroid) be back soon?

My google news feed is awash with mono-themed articles, including a near Earth asteroid that passed by around election day 2020 in the US. We can all hope that neither will lead to an extinction level ...
uhoh's user avatar
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1 vote
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How quickly can a ring system be made?

I've seen elsewhere that if a terrestrial planet had a ring system, it would be very difficult (if not impossible) for life to evolve due to the shadow the rings would cast on the temperate zone in ...
RetailPleb's user avatar
1 vote
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Are these stars in MASCOT image of Ryugu?

Are these stars in this MASCOT image of Ryugu? Larger image: https://www.sciencealert.com/images/2019-08/processed/RocksOfRyuguStranglyFamiliar_1024.jpg They seem too bright to be stars (if the ...
Keith McClary's user avatar
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38 views

Density and Velocity profiles of a self gravitating explosion

Suppose an asteroid explodes, into a spherically symmetrical cloud, of radius R, mass M, and surface receding velocity V (normal to the edge of the cloud), initially the density is radially uniform. ...
Anmoldeep's user avatar
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What is the typical chemical composition of the most common asteroid types?

I'm trying to make a semi-scientific accurate game where you can find/mine asteroids. I want the composition of asteroids, and how common they are to be correct. Or at least as close to correct as ...
Rene Pot's user avatar
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