Recent activity from Planetary Science Journal (2026, vol. 7) features:
Kirchoff, M. Marchi, S. Cochran, M. et al. Formation Age of Ernutet Crater, Ceres, and Implications for Origin of the Organics 40 ae3568
Braga, L. Amarante, A. Ferreira, F. et al. Surface Properties, Orbital Dynamics, and Thermophysical Modeling of the Primitive Asteroid (269) Justitia 46 ae3d93
Phua, Y. Y. de Kleer, K. Butler, B. et al. Thermophysical Modeling of Asteroid (15) Eunomia from Spatially Resolved ALMA and VLA Data 47 ae3751
McGraw, L. E. Thomas, C. A. Emery, J. P. et al. Hydration Features on Near-Earth Objects: Integrating New Data with Prior Results 55 ae3de0
Sunshine, J. M. Rizos, J. L. Barnouin, O. S. et al. Evidence of Recent Material Transport within a Binary Asteroid System 56 ae3f27
Saurety, A. Caracas, R. Carbonated Chondrites during Giant Impacts 63 ae4488
Palamakumbure, L. Korda, D. Kohout T. et al. Space Weathering Age of Itokawa and Eros by Machine Learning 65 ae4749
Ceres… the wonders never cease. Aside from being active (shedding mass, here as water vapor), it’s still a carbonaceous chondrite, and laced with organics. Hmm, a world of water and organics… why ever would we study it?
And speaking of carbonaceous, organic-bearing worlds, the asteroid (269) Justitia, while far smaller than (1) Ceres, is curious in a distant (or not) way. Justitia shows (as best we can tell) the color of organics, perhaps from an origin in the far Solar System (really, like the Kuiper Belt). The Emirate’s MBR mission to the asteroids will visit Justitia for this very question, but we can ask it already. And for that matter, it’s possible that organics and ammonium on Ceres came from infall of Justitia-like bodies.
By comparison, (15) Eunomia looks a bit plain. Doesn’t mean it lacks secrets. As a large asteroid, we can actually split one side from the other with existing telescopes. It looks like (fingers crossed) Eunomia has both crust and exposed mantle materials.
Ceres aside, we see other asteroids with water. Even ones in the Earth-crossing region, closer and warmer. McGraw and company continue the search. Mining, anyone?
You may have seen the Sunshine et al. results, in other media. After the DART test, we pored over its images. It seems that Didymos and Dimorphos aren’t passive rocks, but actually shedding stuff, which falls from one onto the other. DART images are vague, but the Hera probe should settle it this Winter.
Life is (to a first cut) carbon. But carbon escapes the Solar System’s formative era, becoming methane, carbon monoxide, nitriles, etc. and blowing out. Carbon has to get bound as nonvolatile forms, then accreted into Earth (…and potentially Mars?). Meteorites (and thus their asteroidal parents) are often carbon-rich: Saurety et al. consider the delivery of carbon to new planets via meteor infall.
Shorter history: meteor infall causes craters and other forms of alteration. Palamakumbure et al. consider the ‘delivery’ of age to two well-studied asteroids by micrometeor impacts, solar wind, radiation, etc.