Active Asteroids
Active asteroids are small rocky objects in our Solar System that have asteroid-like orbits but comet-like appearances. Active asteroids can have visible tails and comae - halos of debris. These visible features suggest that these asteroids are rich in water. It is even possible that active asteroids supplied some of the water that became Earth’s oceans! Join the Active Asteroids project and search for these unusual asteroids to help map the distribution of water in the solar system and inform future space mining!
WHO: All Ages
WHERE: Online
Go to Project Website
What you’ll get to do:
- Help answer unsolved questions about how much water was delivered to Earth after it formed, and where that water originated.
- Search images captured by the 4-meter Blanco telescope in Chile to find active asteroid candidates.
- Connect with professional scientists and other citizen scientists in the project Talk forums.
Requirements
- Time: Minutes
- Equipment: Internet connected mobile device or computer
- Knowledge: None. In-project training provided.
Get started!
- Visit our project website.
- Click the “Get started” button and complete the short Tutorial to learn how to identify an active asteroids in the images.
- Use your new skills to look for evidence of active asteroids in telescope images.
- Communicate with other volunteers!
Learn More:
If you’d like to learn more about our project and active asteroids, check out our project website at http://activeasteroids.net/.