| | September 9 What Asteroid Ryugu Told Us | | | |
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| | Asteroid Ryugu in June 2018, via the Japanese Hayabusa2 spacecraft. This mission is the 2nd-ever sample-return mission to an asteroid. The earlier one was the original Hayabusa mission, which returned a sample from asteroid Itokawa in 2010. Image via the Japanese space agency, JAXA. Read more. | | |
| What asteroid Ryugu told us | | Two studies published this summer about asteroid Ryugu - based on data from the ongoing Hayabusa2 mission - confirm that the asteroid is fragile. The good news is that small fragments of this asteroid (or asteroids like it) might more easily burn up in our atmosphere. The bad news is that, if an asteroid like this one were on a collision course with Earth, and we planned to try to divert it (for example, by setting off a nuclear device in its vicinity), we'd have to do so with "great care" in order not to create multiple large bodies that might then impact Earth. Read more. | | | | | | | |
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| | | Orion's Belt points to dazzling Sirius | You can always recognize Sirius, the sky's brightest star. If you're not sure, notice that the 3 medium-bright stars in Orion's Belt point to it. Read more. | | | | |
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| | Venus returns to evening sky | View at EarthSky Community Photos. | If you're looking for Venus now - the brightest planet - you won't find it with the eye alone. But it's possible to catch the planet now, near the sunset, with a telescope. Radu Anghel in Bacau, Romania, caught Venus with a 4-inch refracting telescope and a Canon 750D on September 6. Thanks, Radu! Read more. | | |