Where Do Killer Meteorites Come From?

I was browsing through social media when I came across someone asking an intriguing question:
How do meteors leave the asteroid belt?

This question brought to mind a science story I knew – about the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs.

I'll get to that, but first, a sub-question: do meteors even come from the asteroid belt?

Dawn Comes to Ceres

This Friday is going to be an exciting day in space exploration!

I just got finished watching NASA’s JPL briefing on the status of the Dawn spacecraft mission, and I loved it! And as Bill Nye says: “When you’re in love, you want to tell the world!”

The Dawn spacecraft was launched in September 2007, and in 2011 it became the first spacecraft to orbit a body in the main asteroid belt: it spent over a year examining the giant asteroid Vesta, making wonderful observations about its surface features and geologic activity. Vesta is the second-largest object in the asteroid belt, but Dawn wasn’t quite satisfied with that.

On Friday, it will reach Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt, and earn two other unprecedented titles: the first spacecraft to orbit two different worlds, and the first spacecraft to reach and investigate a dwarf planet.

Mars Science Lab: Liftoff!

Yesterday morning, at 10:02 EST, NASA’s Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) took off from Cape Canaveral in Florida.  In my opinion, this is possibly the most exciting scientific event of the year, as this mission to Mars is carrying the new Mars rover, Curiosity.

Curiosity isn’t the first Mars rover, of course.  The first was the small rover Pathfinder, which spent nearly three months on Mars in 1997 and set the precedent for all following rovers.   Most people are probably more familiar with the Mars Exploration Rovers (MER), Spirit and Opportunity.  The MER twins landed on opposite sides of Mars in 2004, their mission to answer the big question: has there ever been permanent water on Mars?  In the time since their deployment, these rovers, along with the handful of other landers and orbiters we’ve sent to Mars, have uncovered astounding evidence of past Martian environments: geologic features that hint at ancient river beds, floods, and perhaps even oceans.  The resounding answer is yes, Mars used to have plenty of water.

And why do we care if Mars had water?  Because on Earth, water is the basis of all life.  If Mars had water at one point, could it also have had life like we have on Earth?  This is the underlying question in all Mars research, and it is the main objective of the Mars Science Laboratory mission.

Atlantis

Back in May, we saw the launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavor, the penultimate mission of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.  Yesterday, the Space Shuttle Atlantis launched on its final mission, marking the end of the space shuttle program for good.

The shuttle program was started in 1972, and counting this last one, has launched a total of 135 missions, contributing quite a bit to the study and exploration of space.  Now that the program has come to an end, NASA no longer has the capability to send astronauts into space, and there’s no replacement program planned as of yet.  For now, the only way to get astronauts to the Space Station will be with the use of the Russian Soyuz program.

Squids And Bricks In Space

This Monday, the space shuttle Endeavor will fly for the last time, carrying six crew members on a 16-day trip to the International Space Station.  This will be the second-to-last flight of NASA’s Space Shuttle Program.  After this, Atlantis will fly later this year, and then the Program will be done for good.  But scientists are putting this penultimate voyage to good use – not only will the shuttle be delivering the much-celebrated Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer, designed to detect dark matter and other cool outer space-y stuff, but Endeavor will be home to a couple of rather unique and exciting experiments.

Space is a weird place.  It’s cold, it’s dark, it’s silent, and importantly, there’s no gravity, and that’s kind of a big deal.  Building machines to operate in space is a bit of a challenge, especially if you don’t know how your contraptions will act in little or no gravity.  Well, to get at solving this problem, the crew members of the Endeavor flight will help in conducting a special experiment.  Their mission, if they choose to accept it, will be to play with LEGOs in space.

Man, remember when you were little and being an astronaut seemed like the coolest job?  These guys get to go into space, and build stuff with LEGOs … in space!  I think I made the wrong career choice.