A unique, wide-ranging examination of asteroid exploration and our future in space Human travel into space is an enormously expensive and unforgiving endeavor. So why go? In this accessible and authoritative book, astrophysicist Martin Elvis argues that the answer is asteroid exploration, for the strong motives of love, fear, and greed. Elvis's personal motivation is one of scientific love--asteroid investigations may teach us about the composition of the solar system and the origins of life. A more compelling reason may be fear--of a dinosaur killer-sized asteroid hitting our planet. Finally, Elvis maintains, we should consider greed: asteroids likely hold vast riches, such as large platinum deposits, and mining them could provide both a new industry and a funding source for bolder space exploration. Elvis explains how each motive can be satisfied, and how they help one another. From the origins of life, to "space billiards," and space sports, Elvis looks at how asteroids may be used in the not-so-distant future.
"More than forty chapters detail our current astronomical, compositional, geological, and geophysical knowledge of asteroids, as well as their unique physical processes and interrelationships with comets and meteorites"--Provided by ...
Asteroids suggest images of a catastrophic impact with Earth, triggering infernos, tidal waves, famine, and death -- but these scenarios have obscured the larger story of how asteroids have been discovered and studied.
Near - Earth Asteroid Search Programs Grant H. Stokes and Jenifer B. Evans Massachusetts Institute of Technology ... HISTORICAL SEARCH METHODS Ceres , the first asteroid discovered , was found in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi , who was in the ...
This book concentrates on some of the odd aspects of comets and asteroids.
Presented in this book is a list of carefully chosen abstracts and citations of relevant literature about asteroids and the research into them.
... settings in terms of image manipulation only to the JPEG version. What can be achieved is next illustrated by the work of two amateur astronomers, Michael Clarke and Maurice Gavin (the latter better known for his spectroscopy work).
Thomas H. Burbine ... 1970; Consolmagno and Drake, 1977) iron 4.6 M-type (Cloutis et al., 1990; Shepard et al., 2010, 2011, ... Shepard et al., 2010) EL 0.7 M-type (Gaffey and McCord, 1978; Shepard et al., 2010) CV 0.7 K-type (Bell, ...
This book investigates asteroids' prospective energy and material resources. It is a collection of topics related to asteroid exploration, and utilization.
Introduces the bodies in space also known as planetoids, minor planets, or when they stray from their paths, meteoroids.
But did you know that they are linked to life on this planet? From the asteroid Ceres to HalleyÕs comet, blast into space and enter the lonely existence of asteroids and comets.