Commission F4 Asteroids, Comets & Transneptunian Objects
News
NASA's OSIRIS-REx sample return capsule successfully landed on Sep 24, 2003 and delivered a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu. https://www.asteroidmission.org/latest-news/
The ESA Hera mission, which will measure in details DART impact outcome and the properties of Didymos through a rendezvous with the system and various close proximity operations, passed successfully the Critical Design Review in November 2022. The primary launch window opens in October 2024 and the mission is on track to meet this date and arrive at Didymos for 6 months of investigations over the first semester of 2027 (https://www.heramission.space/).
Highlights in asteroids, comets & TNOs study in 2023
EVENTS:
PUBLICATIONS:
A total of over 1400 peer-reviewed papers were published in 2023 according to NASA-ADS database, including ~950 papers on asteroids, ~400 papers on comets, and ~70 papers on Trans-Neptunian Objects (TNOs) and Pluto. The predominant themes remained investigations of near-Earth asteroids, particularly those targeted by the DART, Osiris-Rex, and Hayabusa2 space missions.
SOME RESULTS:
Highlights in asteroids, comets & TNOs study in 2022
EVENTS:
PUBLICATIONS:
More than 1450 peer-reviewed papers were published in 2022 according to NASA-ADS database, including ~900 papers on asteroids, ~400 papers on comets, and ~150 papers on TNOs and Pluto. The most popular topics were investigations of near-Earth asteroids in particular targets of the space missions DART, OSIRIX-Rex, Hayubusa2.
SOME RESULTS:
Highlights in asteroids, comets & TNOs study in 2021
EVENTS:
- The marvelous and successful launches of two asteroid missions, Lucy to Trojan asteroids and DART to the binary Didymos. Lucy will provide first detailed data on asteroids from which we have no meteorite analogue and therefore open a new window on our Solar system history. https://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/lucy/overview/index
- DART will perform an impact in a binary asteroid system at a speed that is close to the average one between asteroids, and will change the orbit of the moon Dimorphos around its primary body Didymos. DART will return images until it impacted Dimorphos, and the results will be observed from Earth-based telescopes and an Italian cubesat named LICIACube, released by DART several days prior to arrival. The ESA Hera mission will rendezvous with the Didymos system to investigate in details the impact outcome in a few years. These missions will allow us to test our asteroid collision models, refine surface chronologies with appropriate scaling rules and feed with parameters at correct scale the collisional evolution models of asteroid populations. https://www.nasa.gov/planetarydefense/dart/dart-news
- Ongoing analysis of asteroid Ryugu’s samples after the success of the Jaxa Hayabusa2 sample returning mission https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01550-6
- NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission completed in-situ study of asteroid Bennu and is on its way back to Earth with the asteroid’s samples. https://www.asteroidmission.org/latest-news/
- Successful test of a multi-static radar intended to expand the scientific reach and capability of the Green Bank Telescope (GBT) and the Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA)/ The test proved that a new radio telescope system can capture high-resolution images in near-Earth space https://www.microwavejournal.com/articles/37417-a-planetary-radar-system-for-detection-and-high-resolution-imaging-of-nearby-celestial-bodies
- Successful international campaigns devoted to the near-Earth asteroid (99942) Apophis organized by International Asteroid Warning Network (IAWN) Campaign https://iawn.net/obscamp/Apophis/index.shtml,
https://az659834.vo.msecnd.net/eventsairwesteuprod/production-atpi-public/64851a6caad54fbbb59e7724f7f89bc4
- The Pluto System after New Horizons (2021, University of Arizona Press) distills, in 688 pages, our understanding of Pluto, its moons, its place in the Kuiper Belt, and thoughts for ongoing exploration. https://uapress.arizona.edu/book/the-pluto-system-after-new-horizons
PUBLICATIONS:
More than 1600 peer-reviewed papers were published in 2021 according to NASA-ADS database, including ~900 papers on asteroids, ~330 papers on comets, and ~370 papers on TNOs and Pluto. The most popular topics were investigations of near-Earth asteroids, Jupiter Trojans, and Pluto.
SOME RESULTS:
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