Comets & Asteroids

How big were the first planetesimals? We attempt to answer this question by conducting coagulation simulations in which the planetesimals grow by mutual collisions and form larger bodies and planetary embryos

Tau Zero journalist Larry Klaes looks at the NExT (New Exploration of Tempel) mission, which gives us a second crack at observing comet Tempel

Latest research has concluded that the Tunguska explosion was almost certainly caused by a comet entering the Earth's atmosphere. And how researcher Michael Kelly from Cornell University came to that conclusion is quite interesting: He analyzed the space shuttle's exhaust plume and noctilucent clouds.

Satellite information on incoming meteors is blocked.

IAUC Circular No. 9052, issued on 2009, June 16, announces the discovery by Rui Yang and Xing Gao of a new comet on several survey images taken by Gao in the course of the Xingming Comet Survey at Mt. Nanshan using a Canon 350D camera (+ 10.7-cm f/2.8 camera lens).

We present thermal observations of 44 Jovian Trojan asteroids with diameters (D) ranging from 5 to 24 km.

A comet hunt on the morning of May25th turns up a previously discovered comet with a interesting history.

Fist-sized stones scattered around Victoria Crater on Mars appear to be meteorites - and might be fragments of the object that punched out the crater, researchers say.

Due to close encounters with the inner planets, Near-Earth-Asteroids (NEAs) can have very chaotic orbits. Because of this chaoticity, a statistical treatment of the dynamical properties of NEAs becomes difficult or even impossible. We propose a new way to classify NEAs by using methods from Fuzzy Logic.

We have performed a simulation of a next generation sky survey's (Pan-STARRS 1) efficiency for detecting Earth-impacting asteroids.

Celestial impacts can bring life as well as wipe it out, say the authors of a new study out of the University of Colorado at Boulder.

During 2006 Mar - 2007 Jan, we used the IRAC and MIPS instruments on the Spitzer Space Telescope to study the infrared emission from the ensemble of fragments, meteoroids, and dust tails in the more than 3 degree wide 73P/Schwassmann-Wachmann 3 debris field.

Secondary "condensation" in 19P/Borrelly, we performed some follow-up about this comet........

An analysis of the dust surrounding the outburst of a young star suggests an explanation for how the crystals inside comets are formed

Observations show the production of crystalline silicates like those found in comets and meteorites in our own solar system.

Volatile organic emissions were detected post-perihelion in the long period comet C/2006 M4 (SWAN) in October and November 2006.

Observations of four comets made with the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer.

The structure of the Taurid meteor complex based on photographic orbits available in the IAU Meteor database is studied.

The Solar System often throws up surprises for astronomers, but the recent discovery of a 2- to 3-km wide asteroid called 2009 HC82 has sent observers in a spin. A retrograde spin to be precise.

The discovery of a 2- to 3-kilometre-wide asteroid in an orbit that goes backwards has set astronomers scratching their heads. It comes closer to Earth than any other object in a 'retrograde' orbit, and astronomers think they should have spotted it before.