Here are some highlights of those missions:. NASA's Dawn spacecraft was launched in to explore asteroid Vesta, the second most massive body in the main asteroid belt. Dawn arrived at Vesta in , then orbited and explored Vesta for over a year before leaving in September to explore dwarf planet Ceres.
Japan's Hayabusa2 was launched in December on a six-year voyage to study asteroid Ryugu, and to collect samples to bring back to Earth for analysis. Hayabusa2 arrived at the asteroid in June Hayabusa2 delivered the asteroid sample to Earth on Dec. Launched on Sept. On April 9, , the spacecraft took one last look at Bennu before beginning its journey back to Earth.
It's on track to deliver the asteroid sample to Earth on Sept. The Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based radar observatories also contribute regularly to our understanding of asteroids. Several more missions, including NASA's Psyche and Lucy , missions are in development to keep exploring these small worlds.
Scientists also use ground-based radar to explore nearby asteroids whenever possible. I decided that my dream was to work for NASA, even if there weren't any girls there yet. Someday there would be, and I was going to be one.
Often referred to as a genius in his field, Robert made pivotal contributions to deep space missions to asteroids and comets. Do what you love, and love what you do. It takes hard work; don't fool yourself into thinking that you can be really good at something witho. I worked hard, persevered, and eventually made it to where I am despite many obstacles along the way. Astronauts pave the way for human exploration beyond our Earth.
They are pilots, scientists, engineers, teachers, and more. Project managers guide missions from concept to completion, working closely with team members to accomplish what they set out to do. A camera payload uplink lead writes software commands that tell a rover what pictures to take. The first thing that fired my imagination for planetary science was when the NASA Voyager spacecraft discovered active volcanoes on Jupiter's moon Io.
It makes a full lap around the sun every 6. The Deep Impact spacecraft served as mothership for NASA's mission to Comet Tempel 1, which crashed an pound kilogram probe into the ice ball in The impact revealed a great deal of water inside and on the surface of Tempel 1, as well as many organic molecules — the building blocks of life — in its interior.
Researchers also got glimpses of layered, primordial material within the comet, yielding clues to how the comet may have formed 4. Tempel 1 is about 4. It is the only comet ever to be visited by two different NASA spacecraft, years apart. After its Tempel 1 rendezvous, Deep Impact chased the comet Hartley 2. On Nov. Researchers said the flyby returned good data on the composition of the comet's icy nucleus. They were also eager to compare Hartley 2 to the four other comets spacecraft have visited, to generate a general sense of what makes comets tick.
Hartley 2, while just under a mile 1. Its lander, "Philae," would make the most detailed study of a comet to date. Rosetta's Philae lander made a bumpy landing on Comet 67P on Nov. NEAR's cameras have also revealed nearly parallel markings, chains of small craters or pits, and grooves. One interpretation is that Eros has a layered internal structure which was produced while Eros was part of a much larger parent body that was broken up long ago by a gigantic collision.
On 23 January , this main-belt asteroid was observed by the Cassini spacecraft from a distance of 1. Images indicated that the asteroid is roughly 15 - 20 km across.
It is probably an S-type object. The asteroid is named after renowned planetary geologist Harold Masursky The first asteroid ever discovered. It was found by Italian astronomer Giuseppi Piazzi in It is about km across and accounts for more than a quarter of the mass of all the main-belt asteroids combined. It takes 4. The map shows that the southern pole is dominated by a depression blue which is a large impact feature.
Discovered in , Vesta is the fourth largest asteroid, after kx76, Ceres and Pallas, with a diameter of about km. It is the brightest asteroid and visible to the naked eye. Observations by the Hubble Space Telescope show that Vesta has a large circular hollow, probably an impact crater, near its south pole.
The km wide basin is about 12 km deep and has a pronounced central peak. It is probably made of basaltic material, similar to the rock commonly found in lava flows on the Earth and Moon.
This suggests that it was once molten. Discovered in by Charles Kowal, Chiron spends its entire life in the outer Solar System, between the orbits of Jupiter and Neptune. Chiron was the first of a family of objects, known as Centaurs , that have been found there.
Astronomers were surprised in when it was suddenly surrounded by a coma cloud of gas and dust. It is grey in colour and has a diameter of about km. Phaethon, which is about 6 km across, follows a highly elliptical, Earth-crossing orbit. It seems to be the source of the dust particles which produce the Geminid meteor shower each December.
It may be the 'dead' nucleus of an old comet. Discovered in by K. Reinmuth, this 1. Hundreds of Apollo-type asteroids have now been discovered.
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