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EarthFinder is a Probe Mission concept selected for study by NASA for input to the 2020 astronomy decadal survey. This study is currently active and a final white paper report is due to NASA at the end of calendar 2018. We are tasked with…

Context. Most small asteroids (<50 km in diameter) are the result of the breakup of a larger parent body and are often considered to be rubble-pile objects. Similar structures are expected for the secondaries of small asteroid binaries,…

This article addresses the challenge of vision-based proximity navigation in asteroid exploration missions and on-orbit servicing. Traditional feature extraction methods struggle with the significant appearance variations of asteroids due…

Hayabusa asteroid explorer successfully released the sample capsule to Australia on June 13, 2010. Since the Earth reentry phase of sample return was critical, many backup plans for predicting the landing location were prepared. This paper…

A nonlinear nature of the binary ephemeris of Cygnus X-3 indicates either a change in the orbital period or an apsidal motion of the orbit. We have made extended observations of Cygnus X-3 with the Pointed Proportional Counters (PPCs) of…

Sample return from the near-Earth asteroid known as 25143 Itokawa was conducted as part of the Hayabusa mission, with a large number of scientific findings being derived from the returned samples. Following the Hayabusa mission, Hayabusa2…

As part of our multi-observatory, multi-filter campaign, we present \rmi color observations of 82 Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) obtained with the RATIR instrument on the 1.5m robotic telescope at the San Pedro Martir's National Observatory in…

Many asteroids show indications they have undergone impacts with meteoroid particles having radii between 0.01 m and 1 m. During such impacts, small dust grains will be ejected at the impact site. The possibility of these dust grains (with…

Asteroid mining offers the possibility to revolutionize supply of resources vital for human civilization. Preliminary analysis suggests that Near-Earth Asteroids (NEA) contain enough volatile and high value minerals to make the mining…

Asteroid mining can become an enabling technology to establish a sustainable manned colony on Mars, which requires metallic materials more often than they are readily available in shipments from Earth. This paper describes a feasibility…

We present the discovery of a planet on a very wide orbit in the microlensing event OGLE-2012-BLG-0838. The signal of the planet is well separated from the main peak of the event and the planet-star projected separation is found to be twice…

Orbital debris in low Earth orbit (LEO) are now sufficiently dense that the use of LEO space is threatened by runaway collisional cascading. A problem predicted more than thirty years ago, the threat from debris larger than about 1 cm…

We report the discovery and orbit of a new dwarf planet candidate, 2015 RR$_{245}$, by the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS). 2015 RR$_{245}$'s orbit is eccentric ($e=0.586$), with a semi-major axis near 82 au, yielding a perihelion…

The maximum mass of a neutron star (NS) is poorly defined. Theoretical attempts to define this mass have thus far been unsuccessful. Observational results currently provide the only means of narrowing this mass range down. Eclipsing X-ray…

In the last decades Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) have become very important targets to study, since they can give us clues to the formation, evolution and composition of the Solar System. In addition, they may represent either a threat to…

As the orbital environment around Earth becomes increasingly crowded with debris, active debris removal (ADR) missions face significant challenges in ensuring safe operations while minimizing the risk of in-orbit collisions. This study…

(99942) Apophis is a potentially hazardous asteroid that will closely approach the Earth on April 13, 2029. Although the likelihood of an impact has been ruled out, this close encounter represents a unique opportunity for planetary science…

Ceres is the largest and most massive body in the asteroid main belt. Observational data from the Dawn spacecraft reveal the presence of at least two impact craters about 280~km in diameter on the Ceres surface, that could have expelled a…

The Gaia Data Release 1 (GDR1) is a first, important step on the path of evolution of astrometric accuracy towards a much improved situation. Although asteroids are not present in GDR1, this intermediate release already impacts asteroid…

The present OSS mission continues a long and bright tradition by associating the communities of fundamental physics and planetary sciences in a single mission with ambitious goals in both domains. OSS is an M-class mission to explore the…