Collaborate Disseminate
A history-making NASA spacecraft has just received a new lease on life. OSIRIS-REx, which is currently on its way back to Earth with rock samples from asteroid Bennu, will now have its mission extended to visit another asteroid, Apophis.Continue Readin… Continue reading NASA extends OSIRIS-REx asteroid-sampling mission to visit Apophis
Keeping tabs on the night sky is an enjoyable way to stay connected to the stars, and astronomy can be accessible to most people with a low entry point for …read more Continue reading Keep Tabs on Asteroids With Asteroid Atlas
With less than an hour’s worth of data, NASA managed to predict that a two-meter (6.5 ft) asteroid would impact in the Earth’s atmosphere on March 11 at 5:23 pm EST, over the Norwegian Sea 300 miles (470 km) off the east coast of Greenland.Continue Rea… Continue reading NASA predicts time and place of small asteroid’s impact with Earth
Wayward asteroids pose a serious threat to life on Earth, and we may not have long to react should we discover one on a collision course. NASA is now investigating a proposal for a defense system that could break apart a hazardous space rock just days … Continue reading Space shotgun could destroy dangerous asteroids just hours before impact
Astronomers had a tense few days in January, as a newly discovered space rock became the riskiest asteroid in a decade – and then hid behind the Moon for a week. Thankfully, further observations have now found that it poses no risk to Earth when it swi… Continue reading The tense journey from “riskiest asteroid in a decade” to no threat
Astronomers have discovered the first known quadruple asteroid system. A team from Thailand and France spotted a third moon orbiting the main-belt asteroid Elektra, moving the object into the record books.Continue ReadingCategory: Space, ScienceTags: A… Continue reading First quadruple asteroid discovered in the solar system
Although it should be extremely common in the universe, dark matter has proven tricky to detect. Now researchers have proposed an intriguing new method to spot it – looking for shock waves as dark matter “asteroids” collide with stars.Continue ReadingC… Continue reading “Dark matter asteroids” could be spotted colliding with stars
NASA has been watching the skies for potentially hazardous asteroids for decades, but there are some factors that the existing Sentry program couldn’t account for. The second-generation system, Sentry-II, has now gone online, allowing astronomers to ca… Continue reading NASA’s asteroid-impact monitoring system gets accuracy upgrade
Accounting for where all of the Earth’s water came from is a longstanding puzzle, but an international team of scientists led by the University of Glasgow has proposed that the Sun may be a major source of our planet’s H₂O, by way of hydrogen from the … Continue reading Asteroid analysis suggests some of Earth’s water came from the Sun
NASA has launched its Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission to demonstrate a possible way to deflect asteroids that could pose a threat to the Earth sometime in the future. Today at 1:21 am EST (06:21 GMT), the robotic probe lifted off atop a… Continue reading DART spacecraft is now on its way to crash into an asteroid