Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s “Little Prince” lived on an asteroid scarcely larger than himself. As readers of the childhood classic will remember, his companions were a sheep and a rose, and some baobab seedlings that he carefully weeded, lest they grow into giant trees that would split his tiny world.
Articles with Asteroids
The asteroid Eros imaged by the NEAR spacecraft • NASA/JPL/JHUAPL (Public Domain)
Artist's impression of an Earth impacting asteroid• Illustration by Kevin Gill (CC BY 2.0)
When your hour is up
Doc, you’ll remember me. I am the fellow who was here a little more than a year ago — worrying about rocks from the sky.
Artist's impression of asteroid • NASA/JPL-Caltech (Public Domain)
Too close for comfort
Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s Little Prince lived on a world so small he could watch a dozen sunsets in a single evening just by moving his chair westward around the circumference of his tiny planet. His planet had a few weeds and three volcanoes, two active, one extinct; the Little Prince kept the active volcanoes unviolent by periodic cleaning with a Q‑tip sort of swab.