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Exploring asteroids and other small bodies throughout the solar system has gotten increasingly popular, as their small gravity wells make them ideal candidates for resource extraction, enabling the expansion of life into the solar system. However, the technical challenges facing a mission to explore one are fraught \u2013 since they\u2019re so small and variable, understanding how to land on one is even more so. A team from the University of Trieste in Italy has proposed a mission idea that could help solve that problem by using an ability most humans have but never think about.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n Have you ever closed your eyes and tried to touch your fingers to one another? If you haven\u2019t, try it now, and you\u2019ll likely find that you can easily. It\u2019s possible to do even without guidance from your five normal senses. That is what is known as proprioception \u2013 our hidden \u201csixth\u201d sense. It is that ability to know where objects are in relation to one another \u2013 in this case, where your hands are in relation to one another without any other sensory indication.<\/p>\n Taking that basic idea and extrapolating it to a mission to an asteroid, the basic concept of the mission involves a lander with what seems like a dome with a ton of little balls on it, each facing a slightly different direction. Those balls are then ejected from the dome with varying degrees of force and land on various parts of the asteroid or comet.<\/p>\n \n