Written by Kenneth ChangBuilding off the success of its Hope spacecraft, which is still circling and studying Mars, the United Arab Emirates announced Monday plans for an ambitious follow-up mission: a grand tour of the asteroid belt. In February 2030, the spacecraft will arrive at Westerwald, a 1.4-mile-wide asteroid, zipping past at 20,000 mph on its way to visit six more objects in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. “We would get a more detailed look at the surface of the asteroid,” said Hoor al-Mazmi, the science lead for the mission. “And we would understand the interior density and the structure of the asteroid.”The seventh asteroid, Justitia, is the most intriguing. That has led planetary scientists to speculate that Justitia formed in the outer reaches of the solar system and then was scattered inward by the shifting orbits of the giant planets, eventually joining the asteroid belt.

Source: Indian Express May 31, 2023 00:18 UTC