Sun may have captured other system&#39;s asteroids
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The sun may have captured millions of asteroids from another planetary system during an encounter more than 4 billion years ago, astronomers report today.
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A science probe making  NASA&#39;s first foray into the asteroid belt missed its summer  launch window, jeopardizing NASA&#39;s first attempt to orbit two  bodies with a single spacecraft, officials said on Sunday.
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Cold, dusty discs of debris have been clearly detected around stars in other planet-harbouring solar systems for the first time by NASA&#39;s Spitzer Space Telescope.
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Additional observations have ruled out the chance that a recently discovered asteroid, believed to be about 1,300 feet long, could hit Earth in 2029, NASA scientists said.
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LOS ANGELES - There&#39;s a 1-in-300 chance that a recently discovered asteroid, believed to be about 1,300 feet long, could hit Earth in 2029, a NASA scientist said Thursday, but he added that the perceived risk probably will be eliminated once astronomers
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This summer, NASA will launch a robotic probe to visit two stange and giant asteroids--one is covered with ice while the other may have been blasted by an ancient supernova.  The tales these asteroids tell may reveal the true beginnings of our solar system.
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The planned weekend launch of a spacecraft to explore two of the solar system's largest asteroids was delayed to the middle of the month because of problems with a tracking ship and aircraft.
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A spacecraft in solar orbit reached almost directly above   the south pole of the Sun last week, giving   scientists a rare glimpse of this unfamiliar territory.
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For the very first time, astronomers have witnessed the speeding up of an asteroid's rotation, and have shown that it is due to a theoretical effect predicted but never seen before.
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The Spitzer and Hubble Space Telescopes each have found dusty disks around sun-like stars. Finding such rings of dusty debris around stars the size of the sun is difficult, because they are fainter and harder
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There's a 1-in-300 chance that a recently discovered asteroid, believed to be about 1,300 feet long, could hit Earth in 2029, a NASA scientist said Thursday, but he added that the perceived risk probably will be eliminated once astronomers get more detail about its orbit.
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The first direct image of a planet circling another star may have been obtained by a US-European team of astronomers.
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Researchers behind the study speculate that other life-forms may have already sent us messages, perhaps even as organic material embedded in asteroids that have struck Earth.
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These Hubble Space Telescope images of Vesta and Ceres show two of the most massive asteroids in the asteroid belt, a region between Mars and Jupiter. The images are helping astronomers plan for the Dawn spacecraftâs tour of these hefty asteroids.
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Future space explorers might bring back more than just pictures from their excursions -- they could mine the planets for profit. By Mark Baard.
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The Hubble Space Telescope has imaged two of the largest known asteroids, revealing craters and other features that will soon be the targets of close-up observations by NASA&#39;s Dawn spacecraft.
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Across our galaxy, the formation of planetary systems is typically a &quot;big mess&quot; -- a violent, slam-bang process in which dust balls grow into mountainous asteroids that hurtle about like pinballs, repeatedly smashing each other to bits, scientists