A NASA spacecraft has captured new video of the huge asteroid Vesta ahead of a planned rendezvous with the space rock in July, revealing an odd, dark spot that has astronomers buzzing.

NASA’s Dawn probe will arrive in orbit around Vesta, the second-largest asteroid in the solar system, on July 16. The spacecraft has been taking photos of Vesta with its framing camera since May to help prepare for the close encounter. Read the rest of this entry »

To better understand the future, NASA and the UA are teaming up to extract and study a chunk of the solar system’s past.

The UA will receive roughly one-quarter of NASA’s $800 million  contract to develop and operate the mission, known as the Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer, or OSIRIS-REx.

OSIRIS-REx is an asteroid sample return mission that, if successful, will extract and bring back at least 60 grams of pristine, uncontaminated material to Earth for study in terrestrial laboratories, said Paul Hertz, chief scientist in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA.

The final mission criteria, which are yet to be “signed and approved,” will most likely determine whether or not the OSIRIS-REx mission is a success by NASA’s standards, Hertz said.

Michael Drake, director of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and the mission’s principal investigator, will lead OSIRIS-REx and act as its “quarterback.” Read the rest of this entry »