Dust ponds
Videos
Dust ponds are a phenomenon where pockets of dust are seen in celestial bodies without a significant atmosphere, like asteroids, comets and some minor planets. These are smooth deposits of dust accumu
Levitated particles causing Lunar horizon glow. Photo taken by Surveyor 7 mission.
Asteroid Itokawa photographed by the Hayabusa probe. We can see a smooth patch of dust in the middle, the Muses-Sea region. The region contains dust ponds.
NEAR Shoemaker
Videos
Near Earth Asteroid Rendezvous – Shoemaker, renamed after its 1996 launch in honor of planetary scientist Eugene Shoemaker, was a robotic space probe designed by the Johns Hopkins University Applied P
Dust ponds
…areas. As there are no air around them, their method of formation is still debated. The phenomenon was discovered on 2000 October 28, by the spaceprobe NEAR Shoemaker on Asteroid 433 Eros. On airless bodies, electrostatic transport is believed to be the leading cause of dust transport. Infrared rays and ultraviolet…
Launch of NEAR, February 1996
One of the images from the flyby of 253 Mathilde
Near-Earth asteroid Eros as seen from the NEAR spacecraft.
Trajectory graphic depicting the voyage of the NEAR spacecraft