On Thursday, the JPL spacecraft Dawn launches for the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. In these days of discord, it is good to realize that we are still making many new discoveries. We are trying to find out new information about the Universe because we have confidence that new knowledge will make us more than we are now. Dawn will visit Ceres and Vesta. Heres a couple of our best current photos of these members of our solar system: A Hubble Space Telescope view of Texas-sized Ceres. http://www.astronomy.com/asy/default.aspx?c=a&id=3478 A Hubble photo of Vesta from a distance of 110 million miles. Vesta is only 330 miles in diameter, but it has a 285 mile wide crater. http://library.thinkquest.org/18652/asteroid.html
Uncle Ferd says, "Yea - an' dey thought dat one dat hit Russia was gonna be a fly-by... Dark, massive asteroid to fly by Earth on May 31 May 17, 2013, It's 1.7 miles long. Its surface is covered in a sticky black substance similar to the gunk at the bottom of a barbecue. If it impacted Earth it would probably result in global extinction. Good thing it is just making a flyby.
Granny says, "Dat's right - dem space aliens done drawed a bead on us... There's only a 1 in 48,000 chance the Earth could be destroyed in 2032 10/18/2013 ~ NASA says a big asteroid that whizzed by Earth last month unnoticed is probably nothing to worry about when it returns much closer in 19 years.
