Comments on: Lutetia may have witnessed the birth of the Earth

By: flip

flip — Sun, 20 Nov 2011 08:45:06 +0000

How do they work out the composition of asteroids near the sun vs far away and compare to meteorites? Is it simply a matter of looking at the spectrum of all and comparing them, then realising that certain asteroids match/are similar to meteorites?

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 03:35:49 +0000

@ ^ 5. Grand Lunar : “I wonder if a manned mission to Lutetia is possible. Load up with a lot of samples and see what we get.”

Yep. I’m pretty sure it would be given Lutetia’s already been visited once and NASA is already planning a manned asteroid mission. (Or was at any rate?)

See :

http://www.universetoday.com/14101/nasa-considers-manned-asteroid-mission/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhaqEVd29io&feature=player_embedded

for more.

EDIT : On the other hand, this news item :

http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/09/01/nasa-narrows-targets-manned-asteroid-mission/

notes :

An asteroid mission requires a large-enough destination that astronauts could reach within a few months of launch from Earth, says Lindley Johnson, head of NASA’s Near-Earth Object program in Washington.

Which may rule Lutetia out for now as being too distant.

There’s a good item on the space (dot) com site discussing the “Plymouth Rock” human spaceflight to an asteroid plan linked to my name now too.

By: Grand Lunar

Grand Lunar — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 22:30:23 +0000

I wonder if a manned mission to Lutetia is possible. Load up with a lot of samples and see what we get.

That, or some probe missions to it. Maybe the first rover on an asteroid?

By: Joseph G

Joseph G — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 18:40:29 +0000

Cool! Sorta like having an older sibling that you never heard about

Somewhat off-topic, but I’ve been wondering: why do so many asteroids appear so… smooth? I mean, obviously they’re cratered, but even some of the craters look worn, the way some wind-scoured rocks do on Earth. And presumably, many of these rocks are originally the fractured pieces of larger rocks. So why no sharp, pointy edges? Do micrometeorites, on a scale of billions of years, wear down surfaces the way that windblown sand does (on a much shorter scale) on Earth?

EDIT: I’m dumb. I didn’t read the whole post

By: Chris

Chris — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 17:15:12 +0000

Phil are you anthropomorphising asteroids again? While Lutetia may have been present during the formation of the Earth, witnessing something implies consciousness (or at lest a brain) which asteroids don’t have.

Other than that, very cool.

By: Jes

Jes — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 15:24:24 +0000

How very neat!

By: Messier Tidy Upper

Messier Tidy Upper — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:15:24 +0000

Great news & write up. Thanks BA.

These rare rocks have a very unusual composition that indicates they were formed very near the Sun,

How near is very near?