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Posts
- Space Rocks! (1/4/2019) - It was a fantastic holiday season for space fans! In fact, there was so much going on, it was almost impossible to keep up with it all. According to your news sources and interests, you have probably heard about at least some of the amazing things that happened, but chances are you haven’t heard about … Continue reading Space Rocks!
- Get Lost in Space! (9/14/2018) - Way back in August, in anticipation of the start of a new school year, I set out to update the pages on this site related to space. Those pages tend to be popular among the teachers and students who use Cosma, and I happen to enjoy updating them, too. It sounded like a short, fun … Continue reading Get Lost in Space!
- Asteroids Galore! (6/27/2018) - Head’s up! You’re going to hear a lot about asteroids over the next week or so. The good news is that none of it is related to any specific asteroid hitting us. This media blitz is due to a trifecta of asteroid related events this week. One big reason you’ll hear so much about asteroids … Continue reading Asteroids Galore!
- Octopuses from Space! (5/20/2018) - Did you hear the one about the octopuses from space? It sounds like the title of a cheesy sci-fi movie, doesn’t it? But it isn’t, this time, or at least, yet. Instead, it’s actually an oddball theory that’s been put forth in a recently published “scientific” article that’s getting quite a lot of buzz in … Continue reading Octopuses from Space!
- Asteroids Everywhere (6/30/2017) - Friday, June 30 is Asteroid Day, so you are going to be hearing a LOT about Asteroids over the next day or so (see Asteroid Day.org, NASA, YouTube and Wikipedia). The reason Asteroid Day falls on this date is because it’s the anniversary of the 1908 “Tunguska event” when scientists believe a 50 meter wide … Continue reading Asteroids Everywhere
Resources
These are organized by a classification scheme developed exclusively for Cosma. More…
General
Portal
Solar System Exploration: Asteroids (NASA)
Asteroid Things (Wikipedia)
Dictionary
asteroid : any of the small rocky celestial bodies found especially between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter — Webster
OneLook, Free Dictionary, Wiktionary, Urban Dictionary
Encyclopedia
Asteroids are a class of Small Solar System Bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones. These terms have historically been applied to any astronomical object orbiting the Sun that did not show the disk of a planet and was not observed to have the characteristics of an active comet, but as small objects in the outer Solar System were discovered, their volatile-based surfaces were found to more closely resemble comets, and so were often distinguished from traditional asteroids. Thus the term asteroid has come increasingly to refer specifically to the small rocky–icy and metallic bodies of the inner Solar System out to the orbit of Jupiter. They are grouped with the outer bodies—centaurs, Neptune trojans, and trans-Neptunian objects—as minor planets, which is the term preferred in astronomical circles.
There are millions of asteroids, many thought to be the often shattered remnants of planetesimals, bodies within the young Sun’s solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets. A large majority of known asteroids orbit in the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter or co-orbital with Jupiter (the Jupiter Trojans). However, other orbital families exist with significant populations, including the near-Earth asteroids. Individual asteroids are classified by their characteristic spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups: C-type, S-type, and M-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbon-rich, stony, and metallic compositions, respectively. — Wikipedia
Asteroids (Eric Weisstein’s World of Astronomy, Wolfram Research)
Encyclopædia Britannica
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Science
Planetary Defense Office (NASA)
NASA Office to Coordinate Asteroid Detection, Hazard Mitigation (NASA)
Planetary Defense Coordination Office, Press Release (PDCO, NASA)
Twenty Years of Tracking Near-Earth Objects (NASA/JPL)
Near-Earth Objects Internet Resources (Library of Congress)
Near-Earth Objects (Minor Planet Center, International Astronomical Union)
Near Earth Asteroids (Minor Planet Center, International Astronomical Union)
Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (Minor Planet Center, International Astronomical Union)
1+ KM Near-Earth Objects (Minor Planet Center, International Astronomical Union)
OSIRIS-REx Mission (NASA)
OSIRIS Rex (Wikipedia)
101955 Bennu (NASA)
101955 Bennu (Wikipedia)
Preservation
History
The Discovery of Asteroids (ESA)
Library
WorldCat, Library of Congress, UPenn Online Books, Open Library
Participation
Education
What is an Asteroid? (Space Place, NASA)
More to Explore: Asteroids, Comets and Meteorites (NASA)
Comets, Meteors & Asteroids (Ask an Astronomer, Cornell University)
Asteroids (Cosmos4Kids)
Course
Crash Course Astronomy (YouTube)
OER Commons: Open Educational Resources
Community
Organization
International Astronomical Union (IAU)
News
Science Daily, Phys.org, NPR Archives
Book
Government
Document
Expression
Fun
The Great Asteroid of 1998 (FailBook)
Poem
OEDILF: The Omnificent English Dictionary In Limerick Form
More…
Phys.org - latest science and technology news stories Phys.org internet news portal provides the latest news on science including: Physics, Nanotechnology, Life Sciences, Space Science, Earth Science, Environment, Health and Medicine.
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Image: Luca installs BioRock
on August 20, 2019 at 2:12 pm
Heigh-ho, heigh-ho, it is off to work the microbes go.
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Scientists complete LSST's digital sensor array
on August 19, 2019 at 3:05 pm
After 16 years of dedicated planning and engineering, scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Brookhaven National Laboratory have completed a 3.2 gigapixel sensor array for the camera that will be used in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), a massive telescope that will observe the universe like never before.
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Where will evolution take us in the Fourth...
on August 19, 2019 at 1:42 pm
The study of evolution allows us to reconstruct the past and to understand how life evolved from simple to complex organisms. Evolutionary reasoning can help us make sense of the biggest questions in science, from the origin of the universe to the inner workings of the human brain.
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New model agrees with old: Nuclear war between US...
on August 19, 2019 at 1:29 pm
A team of researchers with Rutgers University, the National Center for Atmospheric Research and the University of Colorado has found that a new climate model agrees with an older climate model—a nuclear war between the U.S and Russia would result in a nuclear winter. They have published their findings in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres.
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Best of both worlds: Asteroids and massive mergers
on August 16, 2019 at 1:51 pm
The race is on. Since the construction of technology able to detect the ripples in space and time triggered by collisions from massive objects in the universe, astronomers around the world have been searching for the bursts of light that could accompany such collisions, which are thought to be the sources of rare heavy elements.
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The moon rock that turned out to be from Earth
on August 16, 2019 at 1:04 pm
All is not what it seems in the world of lunar samples.
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A brief astronomical history of Saturn's amazing...
on August 15, 2019 at 1:10 pm
Many dream of what they would do had they a time machine. Some would travel 100 million years back in time, when dinosaurs roamed the Earth. Not many, though, would think of taking a telescope with them, and if, having done so, observe Saturn and its rings.
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Researchers study largest impact crater in the...
on August 13, 2019 at 7:27 pm
About 35 million years ago, an asteroid hit the ocean off the East Coast of North America. Its impact formed a 25-mile diameter crater that now lies buried beneath the Chesapeake Bay, an estuary in Virginia and Maryland. From this impact, the nearby area experienced fires, earthquakes, falling molten glass droplets, an air blast and a devastating tsunami.
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Meteorite strikes made life on Earth possible
on August 13, 2019 at 11:14 am
Meteorites from the far reaches of the solar system delivered large amounts of water, carbon and volatile substances to the Earth. Only then could the Earth host life. Dr. María Isabel Varas-Reus, Dr. Stephan König, Aierken Yierpan and Professor Dr. Ronny Schönberg from Tübingen University's Isotope Geochemistry Group, and Dr. Jean-Pierre Lorand from the Université de Nantes, provide evidence for this scenario in a new study. Using a method recently developed at the […]
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NASA mission selects final four site candidates...
on August 13, 2019 at 11:14 am
After months grappling with the rugged reality of asteroid Bennu's surface, the team leading NASA's first asteroid sample return mission has selected four potential sites for the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft to "tag" its cosmic dance partner.