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Ryugu and Apophis

27 March 2022
Astronomy

At https://phys.org/news/2022-03-supermassive-black-holes-stellar-births.html … supermassive black holes put a brake on the birth of new stars. This is the latest claim, and it involved machine learning. It also involved three ‘state of the art’ simulations. What could go wrong? Mind you, it did excite the ‘astronomers’ involved in the research. They were  excited the results came out to agree with the input they placed in their supercomputer. Did they think the supercomputer was able to disagree?

At https://phys.org/news/2022-03-asteroid-ryugu-remnant-extinct-comet.html … could the asteroid Ryugu be a remnant of a defunct comet? Ryugu is known from the Hyabusa2 mission the Japanese conducted to what was thought to be an asteroid. Although full analysis has yet to be done some information filtering through is intriguing. It has a very high organic matter content. It is shaped like a spinning top It is a rubble pile in construct. Small pieces of rock and solid material are heaped together, much as the comets are thought to be composed. It is definitely not a single boulder as one might expect with an asteroid.

At https://phys.org/news/2022-03-characteristics-apophis-asteroid-approach-earth.html … Apophis is an earth crossing cosmic body, thought once again to be an asteroid. It will reach its closest trajectory to the earth in April of 2029. A new study analyses its characteristics and the possible hazard it may have for the earth system. Gravitational interaction between a planet and a large cosmic body can perhaps cause it to change the shape of its body – or to break it into pieces. This is more likely if is more comet than an asteroid.

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