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UArizona scientists took part in an international planetary defense exercise that used asteroid Apophis – a large, potentially hazardous asteroid – to test the planetary defense response chain.
A new decadal survey from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine recommends NASA fully support NEO Surveyor, a space-based survey designed to discover and measure asteroids and comets that could pose an impact hazard to Earth. Amy Mainzer, a professor of planetary sciences, leads the effort.
Plasma is rare on Earth, but it fills the sky. To more deeply understand this state of matter that makes up 99% of the visible universe, NASA's HelioSwarm mission will deploy a "swarm" of spacecraft to gather data. UArizona assistant professor Kristopher Klein will serve as the mission's deputy principal investigator.
For weeks, UArizona students have been gathering data on a high-profile piece of space junk on a collision course with the moon. They've confirmed it's not a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket booster as previously believed.
Moons around terrestrial planets may play important roles in shaping the conditions for life. For sizable moons to form successfully, the circumstances must be just right, a new study finds.
The award recognizes the team behind the mission's successful collection of a pristine asteroid sample for laying "the groundwork for forging the next generation of scientists, astronomers, geologists and more."
The near-Earth asteroid Kamo`oalewa might actually be a fragment of our moon, according to a team of astronomers led by the University of Arizona. Kamo`oalewa is a quasi-satellite – a type of near-Earth asteroid that orbits the sun but remains relatively close to Earth.
Using data from NASA's OSIRIS-REx mission, a UArizona-led team of scientists concluded that asteroids with highly porous rocks, such as Bennu, should lack fine-grain material on their surfaces.
New research into metal-rich asteroids reveals information about the origins and compositions of these rare bodies that could one day be mined.
Using machine learning and simulations of giant impacts, researchers found that planets residing in the inner solar system were likely born from repeated hit-and-run collisions.
