09.06.10: H2O in the Solar Neighborhood.

 
   Water, water, everywhere… over the past year or so, evidence for water in the solar system has been mounting in some unlikely places. The poles of our Moon. Ice geysers on Enceladus. Now add the denizens of our asteroid belt to the list; earlier this year, scientists at the Johns Hopkins University of Applied [...]

2009 UN3:A (Semi-) Bright Asteroid flyby.

 
This week, a brief cosmic interloper graces our skies. Tonight, 2009 UN3 will glide silently past Earth, at a distance of 0.03667 Astronomical Units, or about 3,400,000 miles. That equates to roughly 13 times the Earth-Moon distance. Not especially close, as Near Earth Asteroids go; 2009 UN3 isn’t considered a hazard on this pass, but [...]