Episode 380 - New comets, touching an asteroid and the moon

New comets, touching down on an asteroid and fake diamonds on the moon. Small objects in our solar system can teach us about the early days of Earth. What happened on the moon 4.5 billion years ago to form cubic zirconia on the surface? What can we learn about the moon 4. billion years ago  in dust brought back by Apollo 17? A new comet is appears for the end of May which you can see near sunrise. Another comet discovered by Michael Mattiazzo can be see near sunrise at the end of May. Touching down on an asteroid is an incredible feat, and the preliminary data from Hyabusa2 and Ryugu are fascinating.

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2. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. (2020, May 13). New comet discovered by solar observatory. ScienceDaily. Retrieved May 23, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/05/200513135517.htm
3. L. F. White, A. Černok, J. R. Darling, M. J. Whitehouse, K. H. Joy, C. Cayron, J. Dunlop, K. T. Tait, M. Anand. Evidence of extensive lunar crust formation in impact melt sheets 4,330 Myr ago. Nature Astronomy, 2020; DOI: 10.1038/s41550-020-1092-5