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from the send-mini-me-to-mini-moon-on-a-mini-lander dept.
Astronomers want to find small asteroids near Earth that would be easy to reach (in terms of delta-v) targets for sample return missions. The Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST) could help find such objects:
The moon is not alone. Or at least theoretically it shouldn't be. Researchers believe that our planet is potentially orbited by lots of "mini-moons," little asteroids gripped by Earth's gravity that swing around the planet for a little while before burning up in our atmosphere or being flung back into the cosmos.
[...] [If] we could detect these bits of space debris when they enter our orbit, we could capture samples from the space rocks and bring them down to Earth to study, new research in the journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Science [open, DOI: 10.3389/fspas.2018.00013] [DX] suggests. It would be faster, cheaper and more efficient than our big budget missions, including the current OSIRIS-REx sample and return mission to the asteroid Bennu and Japan's Hyabusa 2 mission to the asteroid Ryugu, which take millions of dollars and years of planning and zipping through space to accomplish.
"At present we don't fully understand what asteroids are made of," co-author Mikael Granvik, of Luleå University of Technology, Sweden, and the University of Helsinki, Finland, says in a statement. "Missions typically return only tiny amounts of material to Earth. Meteorites provide an indirect way of analyzing asteroids, but Earth's atmosphere destroys weak materials when they pass through. Mini-moons are perfect targets for bringing back significant chunks of asteroid material, shielded by a spacecraft, which could then be studied in detail back on Earth."
According to the team, the LSST is a "dream instrument" for finding the fast-moving mini-moons because its massive mirror will be able to detect very faint objects and its field of view will allow it to survey the entire sky more than once a week, giving us a good heads up when a chunk of asteroid begins orbiting Earth. Once we find a few targets, the team suggests that we can begin using satellites to study them and shuttle the samples back to Earth.
Also at Discover Magazine and Space.com.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 19 2018, @12:58PM (4 children)
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday August 19 2018, @05:41PM (3 children)
But I'm betting the 'public' who benefits from this the most won't be the general tax payer: it will be the corporations that pay as little tax as lobbyists will get them.
Cynical? That's what corporations have turned me in to...Mr. I. Dont-trustyou.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 2) by takyon on Sunday August 19 2018, @07:20PM (2 children)
Cynical? No, you're being most hysterical. LSST could become one of the most important ground telescopes ever built and will find tens of thousands of asteroids, Kuiper belt objects, and possibly Planet Nine. They are releasing all of their data to the public. The only industry likely to be able to exploit the data basically does not exist yet. (Hint: it rhymes with "hemorrhoid whining".)
And if you haven't sobered up yet... CORPORATIONS ARE PEOPLE, MON AMI.
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(Score: 2) by Gaaark on Sunday August 19 2018, @08:54PM (1 child)
Let's see a corporation have sex and poop.
Errrrrr....no...let's not. Corporation sex would probably involve pooping/poop.
8-£. (dirty Sanchez emoji)
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. I have always been here. ---Gaaark 2.0 --
(Score: 3, Touché) by c0lo on Sunday August 19 2018, @08:57PM
Doing it all the time to their customers and the members of the public.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford