Asteroids, Comets, and Meteors Stories

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NASA Researchers Discover More Dark Comets

4 min read

These celestial objects look like asteroids but act like comets now come in two flavors. The first dark comet — a celestial object that looks like an asteroid but moves through space like a comet — was reported less than…

Article5 days ago
An illustration showing the orbits of four newly named asteroids.

Four Asteroids Named After NASA Volunteers

3 min read

Four amateur astronomers working on NASA’s citizen science project, The Daily Minor Planet, were honored for their contributions to astronomy and planetary science by having asteroids in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter named after them. These volunteers reviewed…

Article2 months ago
Artist’s concept of Centaur 29P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 1 as seen from the side against a dark, mostly starless swath of space. The rocky, bilobed nucleus is toward the right and resembles the simplified shape of a peanut. The left side of the centaur is partially illuminated by the Sun, which is off-screen, revealing the nucleus’ light brown surface. Four jets of gas, depicted as translucent cones of white, emanate from various points on the Centaur’s surface and extend beyond the frame: two emanate upward from the top, one jet spews from the bottom and extends downward, and one jet emanates from the left side of the nucleus and extends toward the left. A label in the bottom left corner reads “Artist’s Concept.”

NASA’s Webb Reveals Unusual Jets of Volatile Gas from Icy Centaur 29P

7 min read

Inspired by the half-human, half-horse creatures that are part of Ancient Greek mythology, the field of astronomy has its own kind of centaurs: distant objects orbiting the Sun between Jupiter and Neptune. NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has mapped the…

Article2 months ago