In modern astronomy, large catalogs of data are vital to our understanding of the universe. But just what does it take to create these large catalogs? Scott Manley has a great video of one example, discovering and cataloging the asteroids in our solar system. It tracks asteroid discoveries from 1980 to the present.
Hot Rocks
Asteroids come in a range of sizes, from hundreds of kilometers in diameter down to a meter wide and smaller. Determining just how many asteroids there are is a challenge, because the smaller an asteroid’s size, the more difficult it is to observe.
Put a Ring On It
Astronomers have found an asteroid with a ring system. While this is the first discovery of a ring system about an asteroid, such a thing isn’t entirely unexpected. But what’s particularly interesting is how they discovered these rings.
Never Tell Me the Odds
Just how cluttered with rocks is the asteroid belt? The answer might surprise you.
Super Breakout
Recently an asteroid has been observed while breaking apart. What makes this particularly interesting is that it doesn’t seem to be due to a collision, but rather due to the effects of sunlight.
Rocking Asteroids
There are a lot of rocks in the asteroid belt of our solar system. One of the most current asteroid databases lists the orbital parameters of almost 370,000 asteroids. Most of these orbit at an average distance of about 2 AU to 3.5 AU. (An AU, or astronomical unit, is roughly the distance of the Earth from the Sun).
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