Items tagged with asteroid

A 200-foot asteroid is on course to pass Earth at a distance closer than the moon. Asteroid 2023 DZ2 will make its near-Earth flyby just before 4pm EST on March 25, 2023. 2023 DZ2 is currently estimated to have a diameter of 210 feet (64 meters) and is part of the Apollo family of asteroids, according to a post on... Read more...
Satellite data suggests that Earth could be at a higher risk of a giant asteroid impact than previously thought. The data may indicate that scientists have been misreading traces of past asteroid strikes that have occurred in the past million years, according to James Garvin, NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center Chief... Read more...
NASA is tracking a new asteroid the size of a swimming pool that has a 1 in 600 chance of impacting Earth. It is estimated to make its closest approach to Earth on Valentine's Day in the year 2046. NASA Asteroid Watch's Twitter account tweeted out about the asteroid earlier this week, stating that it has been... Read more...
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft smashed into asteroid Dimorphos at 13,000mph on September 26, 2022. The intergalactic collision sent over 1,000 tons of dust and rock hurtling off the space rock. The DART mission was an attempt by the space agency to prove whether or not an impact of this... Read more...
NASA astronomers and scientists will be keeping a close eye on an asteroid that is heading for a rendezvous with Earth's orbit later this week. Potentially hazardous asteroid (199145) 2005 YY128 is massive, and it is thought to measure between 1,870 and 4,265 feet across. Asteroid 199145 was first detected by the... Read more...
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) continues to reveal previously undetected celestial objects. This time the observatory finds an asteroid roughly the size of Rome's Colosseum. A team of European astronomers utilizing JWST randomly detected an interloping asteroid located between Mars and Jupiter. The team... Read more...
NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) captured footage of a ringed asteroid more than 2 billion miles away using a new technique, known as occultation. Chariklo is 160 miles (250 kilometers) in diameter and its rings orbit at a distance of around 250 miles (400 kilometers) from the center of the icy rock's... Read more...
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope captured an intruder in one of its images as the space agency attempts to fill in the gaps of the Milky Way. When the project was first proposed, 75% of all the Milky Way nearby neighbors had been imaged by Hubble. The project aims to use the gaps between longer Hubble observations in... Read more...
If you have ever wanted to see what kind of damage a large asteroid impact would have on your hometown, there is now an Asteroid Launcher web app that can give you all the catastrophic details. Asteroid Launcher is based on papers by Dr. Gareth Collins and Dr. Clemens Rumpf. An Armageddon-type asteroid event, such... Read more...
In what scientists deem a "wildly theoretical" paper, they believe creating a method for building large cities on asteroids could be the answer for viable space habitats in the future. The research from the University of Rochester scientists was recently published in the journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space... Read more...
In order to celebrate the release of it's asteroid toolkit, the European Space Agency (ESA) has issued a challenge to find a mystery asteroid. The Christmas asteroid poses no threat to Earth, but the agency says it does not know much about 2015 RN35, which presents an opportunity for learning more about... Read more...
Hawaii's Mauna Loa volcano erupted for the first time in 40 years, and has NASA watching a few of its space-related facilities in the nearby area. Mauna Loa is the world's largest volcano, which erupted late Sunday, November 27, 2022. According to U.S. Geological Survey, Mauna Loa erupted at 11:30 p.m. local time... Read more...
An international team used the Dark Energy Camera (DECam) to discover three new near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) hiding behind the glare of the Sun. One of the asteroids discovered is the largest near-Earth asteroid spotted in the last 8 years. It seems like new near-Earth asteroids are being discovered every other day... Read more...
A newly discovered asteroid, roughly the size of the world's tallest building, will make a near-Earth pass on November 1, 2022. The mammoth asteroid, called 2022 RM4, was discovered on September 12, 2022, by the Pan-STARRS 2 telescope in Hawaii. NASA recently flew a spacecraft into asteroid Dimorphos, in order to... Read more...
Scientists have discovered that near-Earth asteroid Phaethon has a measured change in its rotation period. Phaethon is just the 11th asteroid to be found with this unique feature, and its the largest of the group. NASA's DART mission recently flew into asteroid Dimorphos, in a test to see if it is possible to... Read more...
A new study indicates that a giant tsunami caused by an asteroid impact played a large role in the extinction of many of the dinosaurs. The miles-wide asteroid that impacted Earth an estimated 66 million years ago took out nearly all the dinosaurs and about three-quarters of the planet's plant and animal species... Read more...
For the first time ever, NASA's Webb and Hubble space telescopes captured the same celestial target at the same time. The two observatories had front row seats as the space agency's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) slammed into asteroid Dimorphos earlier this week. Webb and Hubble images have been used in... Read more...
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) successfully met its fate, as it crashed into asteroid Dimorphos. The spacecraft was also able to capture some amazing images just before impact as well. In the closing hours of September 26, 2022, the world's first planetary defense technology demonstration met its... Read more...
NASA's DART mission is nearing its final destination later today, as the spacecraft will slam into asteroid Dimorphos in hopes of changing its speed and path. You will be able to follow along tonight as the space agency will be sharing a live feed from the spacecraft, as well as a post-impact press briefing. DART... Read more...
NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft has captured its first images of its deep space target. The journeyed spacecraft is on a mission to crash into Dimorphos, the asteroid moonlet of Didymos, in order to collect data on a spacecraft being used to deflect an asteroid for planetary defense. While... Read more...
This weekend will provide avid astronomers with a parade of asteroids zipping past Earth. In fact, there will be a total of five airplane-sized asteroids joining the procession between Saturday and Monday. Just last month, a bus-sized asteroid made its way past Earth on Asteroid Day, the anniversary of the 1908... Read more...
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft came upon an unsettling circumstance when it attempted to retrieve a sample from asteroid Bennu back in 2020. After analyzing data gathered by its instruments, the team was astonished to ascertain that the spacecraft would have sunk into Bennu had it not fired its thrusters to back away... Read more...
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