Items tagged with asteroid
Backyard astronomers will be able to use their telescopes to focus in on a massive cosmic visitor when it "skims" past Earth this weekend. On June 27 especially, a large asteroid known as (152637) 1997 NC1 will make a close but entirely...
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Scientists have pushed Earth’s oldest known impact crater back to about 3 billion years, and in doing so, they have re-sharpened the debate over how meteorite strikes shaped the planet’s early history. Said crater, in Western Australia’s...
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A small stone discovered in the sands of Mali is reimagining what we know about the early solar system. By examining this rare lunar meteorite, planetary scientists have mapped out a sequence of cosmic collisions that retell the history...
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A newly discovered asteroid, 2026 JH2, will streak past Earth on May 18 at a distance far closer than the Moon but still safely outside harm’s path, offering a rare up‑close look at a small near‑Earth rock.
Discovered by the Mount...
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Rock sample analysis from the asteroids Ryugu and Bennu (collected in 2018) has confirmed that the entire library of the chemical code for DNA and RNA exists in space.
The space-delivery theory for life’s origins has been missing...
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Back in 2022, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully smashed a spacecraft into the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, a kinetic impact experiment to see if we could knock a lethal space rock off course. New analysis this week...
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NASA has announced that the asteroid known as 2024 YR4, a space rock roughly the size of a 20-story building, no longer poses a threat of crashing into the Moon during its close approach in 2032. While initial projections suggested a slim...
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Early last year, there was talk that the newly-discovered Asteroid 2024 YR4 had a really small, but probable chance of striking the Moon in 2032. Now, scientists are revealing what might occur if such as an event took place and the...
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Astronomers peering through images from the Vera C. Rubin Obervatory have discovered an unusual asteroid spinning so fast that it's broken the record for how space rocks of its size are supposed to behave.
Designated 2025 MN45, the...
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Samples retrieved from asteroid Bennu by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission in September 2023 have yielded a surprising treasure trove, revealing not just the building blocks of life, but also a mysterious "space gum" and ancient stellar...
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NASA’s has been busy tracking a trio of sizable asteroids hurtling past Earth’s orbit, one traveling as close as 361,000 miles from us. While scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) assured the public that there's no immediate...
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After a catastrophic asteroid impact 78 million years ago, life didn't just survive—it thrived, at least according to new research that provides the first direct evidence of microbial life recolonizing an impact crater. The study, which...
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A few weeks ago, we reported that scientists had projected that the asteroid 2024 YR4 would have a 4.3% probability of impacting the moon in 2032. So, what would happen if this asteroid were to actually slam into our moon? A recent study...
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What was once dubbed a potential "city-killer" asteroid for Earth now has its sights redefined. New observations from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) increase the odds of a collision with the Moon instead in 2032. While the risk...
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The Gemini South telescope, commissioned over two decades ago, continues to contribute significant astronomical findings. On February 7th, it captured a new image of Asteroid 2024 YR4, which ultimately resulted in a revised projected...
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If you've seen photos of the far side of the moon, specifically of two long canyons within what is called the Schrödinger basin and wondered what created them, look no further—researches have determined that ejecta from an ancient asteroid...
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Yes, there's a chance that a recently spotted asteroid named 2024 YR4 could strike Earth in 2032, but experts are deeming the 196-foot wide small-body a low 1-in-83 strike risk, although others believe the closeness of the approach path to...
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NASA says a bus-sized asteroid is about to make a close approach, coming within 148,000 miles of Earth. According to the space agency, the asteroid, named 2024 UQ1, measures approximately 32-feet across.
Astronomers and scientists are...
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The European Space Agency’s (ESA) Hera spacecraft is headed toward the same asteroid NASA’s DART mission successfully impacted in 2022. The car-sized probe is part of a mission to better understand the ‘kinetic impact’ technique of...
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A group of physicists designed a first-of-its-kind experiment to simulate what might happen if a nuclear bomb was detonated near an asteroid approaching Earth. The experiment recorded in nanosecond detail how a very large pulse of...
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ATLAS, an asteroid impact early warning system in Hawaii, spotted a small asteroid that will temporarily orbit Earth for the next two months. Asteroid 2024 PT5 is a 10-meter (33-feet) wide space rock that is expected to come as close as 1...
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A Kobe University researcher has confirmed that an asteroid which struck Jupiter’s moon Ganymede was about 20 times larger than the one that ended the age of the dinosaurs on Earth. According to the new study, when the asteroid struck...
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