Asteroids
A Surprise Asteroid Lit Up the Sky Over the Philippines
With all of humanity's telescopic eyes on the sky, it's rare for an asteroid to take us by surprise. But…
The Rubin Observatory Will Unleash a Flood of NEO Detections
After about 10 years of construction, the Vera Rubin Observatory (VRO) is scheduled to see its first light in January…
DART Did More Than Deter Dimorphos; It Sent It Into a Chaotic Tumble
In 2022, NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft collided with an object named Dimorphos. The objective was to test…
There Might Be Water on the Surface of the Metal Asteroid Psyche
While a NASA probe heads for an asteroid known as Psyche, telescopes have been probing it to prepare for the…
NASA’s Says Goodbye to its Asteroid-Hunting NEOWISE Mission
NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE), launched in 2009, spent the next fourteen and half years studying the Universe in…
The Surface of Dimorphos is Surprisingly New
When NASA's DART mission intentionally slammed into Dimorphos in September 2022, the orbit of the moonlet was altered. Researchers have…
This Binary Asteroid is Messed Up. It’s Probably Earth’s Fault
Space is big, really big! Finding new asteroids which are usually dark against the inky blackness of space is harder…
The Properties of 1.2 Million Solar System Objects Are Now Contained In A Machine-Readable Database
Academic research on solar system objects has increased dramatically over the last twenty years. However, information on most of the…
ESA is Building a Mission to Visit Asteroid Apophis, Joining it for its 2029 Earth Flyby
According to the ESA's Near-Earth Objects Coordination Center (NEOCC), 35,264 known asteroids regularly cross the orbit of Earth and the…
Asteroid Samples Were Once Part of a Wetter World
Nine months have passed since NASA's OSIRIS-REx returned its samples of asteroid Bennu to Earth. The samples are some of…