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Open AccessSurface Compositions of Trojan Asteroids
The Jupiter Trojan asteroids are a key population for understanding the chemical and dynamical evolution of the Solar System. Surface compositions of Trojans, in turn, provide crucial information for reconstru...
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Open AccessThe Psyche Gravity Investigation
The objective of the NASA Psyche mission gravity science investigation is to map the mass distribution within asteroid (16) Psyche to elucidate interior structure and to resolve the question of whether this me...
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Calibration and Performance of the REgolith X-Ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) Aboard NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Mission to Bennu
The REgolith X-ray Imaging Spectrometer (REXIS) instrument on board NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission to the asteroid Bennu is a Class-D student collaboration experiment designed to detect fluoresced X-rays from the aste...
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Small bodies looming large in planetary science
Japanese and US missions returning samples from the carbon-rich asteroids Ryugu and Bennu are the latest steps in probing our Solar System’s smallest bodies, near and far, for clues to our own origins and dire...
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Undaunted exploration
NASA's New Horizons mission to the outer Solar System has revolutionized our understanding of the Pluto–Charon system. But, Richard P. Binzel explains, this is only half the story of this intrepid spacecraft, ...
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Open AccessErratum to: Special issue “Science of solar system materials examined from Hayabusa and future missions (II)”
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Open AccessSpecial issue “Science of solar system materials examined from Hayabusa and future missions (II)”
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Human spaceflight: Find asteroids to get to Mars
Asteroid retrieval is a distraction, says Richard P. Binzel. Better steps to interplanetary travel abound.
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Chapter
Origin, Internal Structure and Evolution of 4 Vesta
Asteroid 4 Vesta is the only preserved intact example of a large, differentiated protoplanet like those believed to be the building blocks of terrestrial planet accretion. Vesta accreted rapidly from the solar...
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Origin, Internal Structure and Evolution of 4 Vesta
Asteroid 4 Vesta is the only preserved intact example of a large, differentiated protoplanet like those believed to be the building blocks of terrestrial planet accretion. Vesta accreted rapidly from the solar...
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Article
Earth encounters as the origin of fresh surfaces on near-Earth asteroids
The 'ordinary chondrite problem' has been a factor in Solar System astronomy for three decades. It refers to the apparent anomaly that whereas about 80% of the meteorites falling to Earth are 'ordinary chondri...
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Chapter
New Horizons: Anticipated Scientific Investigations at the Pluto System
The New Horizons spacecraft will achieve a wide range of measurement objectives at the Pluto system, including color and panchromatic maps, 1.25–2.50 micron spectral images for studying surface compositions, a...
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Article
New Horizons: Anticipated Scientific Investigations at the Pluto System
The New Horizons spacecraft will achieve a wide range of measurement objectives at the Pluto system, including color and panchromatic maps, 1.25–2.50 micron spectral images for studying surface compositions, a...
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Article
Pluto's expanding brood
Pluto is no lone ranger in the farthest expanses of the Solar System — its travelling companions now number three. And if Pluto can have so many, why shouldn't other objects in the distant, icy Kuiper belt?
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Spin control for asteroids
Random collisions between asteroids would seem to cause their spin axes to be tilted in all directions. Surprisingly, the gentle recoil force of thermal re-radiation may bring their spin axes into alignment.
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Chapter
Solar System Small Bodies
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Article
Eros's extended family
Eros and Ganymed are the two largest asteroids that come close to Earth, 20 and 32 km across,respectively. A study of orbital dynamics hints that they may once have been parts of the sameparent body, a much la...
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Reference Work Entry In depth
Near-earth object
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Commission 15: Physical Study of Comets, Minor Planets and Meteorites
This report has, following the usual practice in Commission 15, been compiled primarily by the chairpersons of the two working groups. E. Tedesco prepared the entire section about Asteroids and Meteorites. H. ...
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Article
243 Ida weighs in
