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See This Orange Smudge? This Could Be NASA’s Target For The Asteroid Mission

Thursday, June 19, 2014 12:49
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An image of asteroid 2011 MD -- a candidate for a potential future mission to an asteroid -- taken by NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope in February 2014. The exposure took 20 hours to accomplish and was done in infrared light. Credit: NASA

An image of asteroid 2011 MD — a candidate for a potential future mission to an asteroid — taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope in February 2014. The exposure took 20 hours to accomplish and was done in infrared light. Credit: NASA

In the center of the image above is an orange smudge. It may not look like much to the untrained eye, but to NASA it represents potential. It’s a candidate asteroid target for a mission the agency badly wants to happen, even though nobody knows for sure yet if things will line up for humans to visit there one day.

This is a picture of asteroid 2011 MD taken by NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope. It’s about 6 meters (20 feet) across and appears to have a low density, the agency said in a statement. While NASA is still looking for other candidates for its asteroid initiative, the agency added this would be the sort of asteroid it’s looking to visit.

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Read the rest of See This Orange Smudge? This Could Be NASA’s Target For The Asteroid Mission (513 words)


© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2014. |
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Post tags: Asteroid initiative, asteroid redirect mission

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Source: http://www.universetoday.com/112706/see-this-orange-smudge-this-could-be-nasas-target-for-the-asteroid-mission/

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