Solar System Exploration: Solar System 101: Homework Helper

HOMEWORK HELPER

Icy Travelers
Comets are cosmic snowballs of frozen gases, rock and dust roughly the size of a small town. When a comet's orbit brings it close to the sun, it heats up and spews dust and gases into a giant glowing head larger than most planets. The dust and gases form a tail that stretches away from the sun for millions of kilometers.

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Comet ISON Meteor Shower
Anticipation is building as Comet ISON plunges into the inner solar system for a close encounter with the sun in November 2013. Blasted at point-blank range by solar radiation, the sungrazer will likely become one of the finest comets in many years.

Collision Course? A Comet Heads for Mars
A comet is heading for Mars, and there is a chance that it might hit the Red Planet in October 2014. An impact wouldn't necessarily mean the end of NASA's Mars program. But it would transform the program along with Mars itself.

Sunset Comet
For a comet, visiting the sun is risky business. Fierce solar heat vaporizes gases long frozen in the fragile nucleus, breaking up some comets and completely destroying others.

Prime Time for PANSTARRS
This week is prime time for observing this comet. (Next opportunity, the year 108,013 +/- a few hundred or thousand years.)

A Possible Naked-eye Comet in March
An Oort Cloud comet could be heading our way now.

Comet of the Century?
Later this year, "Comet ISON" could blossom into a striking naked eye object visible even in broad daylight.

50 Years of Robotic Planetary Exploration: Anita Cochran (Assistant Director of the McDonald Observatory and a Senior Research Scientist at the University of Texas at Austin)
We asked them and here is what the experts had to say about the last 50 years of planetary robotic exploration.

Big Sun-Diving Comet Discovered
Dr. Tony Phillips reports on his personal website -- spaceweather.com -- about a newly-discovered comet that may buzz the sun next year.

Impacts Could be Boon for Subterranean Life

Research... at a Glance

Impacts Could be Boon for Subterranean Life
A drilling project into the Chesapeake Bay impact structure has found evidence that the subsurface may become more habitable after a large impact

50 Years of Robotic Planetary Exploration: Yvonne Pendleton (Director at NASA's Lunar Science Institute)
We asked them and here is what the experts had to say about the last 50 years of planetary robotic exploration.

50 Years of Robotic Planetary Exploration: Michelle Thaller (Assistant Director of Science for Communications at the Goddard Space Flight Center)
We asked them and here is what the experts had to say about the last 50 years of planetary robotic exploration.

50 Years of Robotic Planetary Exploration: Jeff Cuzzi (Research Scientist at NASA Ames Research Center)
We asked them and here is what the experts had to say about the last 50 years of planetary robotic exploration.

Mission to Land on a Comet
Europe's Rosetta spacecraft is en route to intercept a comet--and to make history. In 2014, Rosetta will enter orbit around 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko and land a probe on it for a front row seat as the comet heads toward the heat of the sun.

Comet Corpses in the Solar Wind
A paper published in today's issue of Science raises an intriguing new possibility for astronomers: unearthing comet corpses in the solar wind. The new research is based on dramatic images of a comet disintegrating in the sun's atmosphere last July.

Ices of the Universe
On January 24, 2011, Dr. Murthy Gudipati, scientist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory presented "Ices of the Universe," a lecture focusing on ices found in the solar system, including nitrogen ice on Triton, carbon dioxide ice on Mars, and more

50 Years of Robotic Planetary Exploration: Peter Jenniskens (Research Scientist at the SETI Institute and NASA Ames Research Center)
We asked them and here is what the experts had to say about the last 50 years of planetary robotic exploration.

Comet Lovejoy Plunges into the Sun ... and Survives
Sungrazing Comet Lovejoy has shocked astronomers by surviving its "death plunge" into the sun. Must-see movies of the comet's passage through the sun's atmosphere are featured in today's story from Science@NASA.

Stardust-NExT Mission Delivers Striking Images of Man-Made Crater on Comet Tempel 1
The spacecraft made its closest approach to Comet Tempel 1 on Monday, Feb. 14, at 8:40 p.m. PST (11:40 p.m. EST) at a distance of approximately 178 kilometers (111 miles). Stardust took 72 high-resolution images of the comet.

Get Involved with Stardust
Internet users can help search for dust grains in Stardust's aerogel.

How to Bring a Comet Home
The Stardust spacecraft finally returned to Earth with some precious cargo.

Observing Stardust's Sample Return to Earth
NASA's Stardust Sample Return Capsule and Entry Path Visible in Northwest

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Sunset Comet
For a comet, visiting the sun is risky business. Fierce solar heat vaporizes gases long frozen in the fragile nucleus, breaking up some comets and completely destroying others.

Prime Time for PANSTARRS
This week is prime time for observing this comet. (Next opportunity, the year 108,013 +/- a few hundred or thousand years.)

A Possible Naked-eye Comet in March
An Oort Cloud comet could be heading our way now.

Comet of the Century?
Later this year, "Comet ISON" could blossom into a striking naked eye object visible even in broad daylight.

Big Sun-Diving Comet Discovered
Dr. Tony Phillips reports on his personal website -- spaceweather.com -- about a newly-discovered comet that may buzz the sun next year.

Research... at a Glance

Impacts Could be Boon for Subterranean Life
A drilling project into the Chesapeake Bay impact structure has found evidence that the subsurface may become more habitable after a large impact

Get Involved with Stardust
Internet users can help search for dust grains in Stardust's aerogel.

How to Bring a Comet Home
The Stardust spacecraft finally returned to Earth with some precious cargo.

Observing Stardust's Sample Return to Earth
NASA's Stardust Sample Return Capsule and Entry Path Visible in Northwest

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Show All