minor planets
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Astronomers Spot Cataclysmic Collision of Giant Asteroids in Nearby Star System
Nearly 20 years ago, astronomers observed a massive cloud of fine dust particles around a young star located just 63 light-years away from Earth. In recent observations from the Webb Space Telescope, however, the dust cloud had mysteriously vanished. Now, a new paper suggests the dust cloud may have been caused by a violent event…
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NASA’s DART Mission Is Going to Really Mess Up This Tiny Asteroid
In order to protect the Earth, some sacrifices must be made. NASA’s DART spacecraft is currently on its way to a binary asteroid system known as Didymos and will essentially crash into one tiny asteroid to test out a deflection method. But rather than leaving behind an impact crater as initially intended, the DART spacecraft…
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Astronomers Spot Some Familiar-Looking Comets Around a Distant Star
A team of astronomers looking at a distant star system found 30 exocomets that look remarkably like the comets around our own local star. Down the line, more data from these comets could provide clues as to how water arrived on Earth.
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Mega Comet Arriving From the Oort Cloud Is 137 km Wide
Bernardinelli-Bernstein is officially the largest comet ever discovered, according to updated observations of the inbound object.