Comets & Asteroids

In 1908, a huge explosion devastated a remote region of Siberia. A century later, its cause remains a mystery. David Cohen investigates

Arxiv article about 17P/Holmes outburst in October 2007

Arxiv Article about Dwarf Planet Haumea

Arxiv Artcile about comets 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko

Recorded Live Nasa Chat with NASA JPL scientists, Don Yeomans and Steve Chesley about Near Earth Objects.

When an asteroid was spotted heading towards our planet last October, researchers rushed to document a cosmic impact from start to finish for the first time.

Article appeared on 26 March 2009 on the weekly Journal of Science "Nature". Here You can read only the abstract. To read the full text, a Nature online subscription is required.

Analysis of the asteroid surface density distribution of main belt asteroids

Over a century ago, on June 30th, 1908 a huge explosion detonated over an unpopulated region of Russia called Tunguska.

The Lyrid meteor shower peaks April 22, and conditions favor a great display.

High-dispersion (l/dl ~ 25,000) infrared spectra of Comet C/2004 Q2 (Machholz) were acquired on Nov. 28-29, 2004, and Jan. 19, 2005 (UT dates) with NIRSPEC at the Keck-2 telescope on Mauna Kea.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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).

Satellite information on incoming meteors is blocked.