planetary science
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Walking on Asteroid Bennu Would Be Like Stepping Into a Ball Pit, NASA Says
In October 2020, a small spacecraft briefly touched down on an asteroid to snag a piece of it to bring to Earth. Almost two years later, scientists have learned that if the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft had extended its stay even a tiny bit longer, it would have sunk right into the asteroid.
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Software Glitch Pushes Back NASA’s Psyche Mission Launch by at Least a Year
NASA announced late last week that the long-awaited mission to Psyche, a nearby metal-rich asteroid, will not launch this year. The next possible launch windows for the spacecraft are in 2023 and 2024, meaning that NASA won’t arrive at the asteroid until 2029 at the earliest.
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NASA’s Curiosity Rover Rolls Past Evidence of Ancient Water
For the past 10 years, the Curiosity rover has travelled across the Martian terrain, looking for clues to the planet’s potentially habitable past. Recently, the car-sized robot drove through a transition zone, going from an area that may have once hosted lakes on the surface to one that signifies drier conditions for the Red Planet.
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Asteroid Samples Brought to Earth Contain Key Molecules for Life
Japan’s education ministry says that more than 20 types of amino acids were detected in samples of an asteroid that were brought to Earth in December 2020, The Japan Times reports. The detection is the first evidence that amino acids exist on asteroids in space and has implications for understanding how such vital organic molecules…