Asteroids Archives

January 27, 2023January 27, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Truck-Sized Asteroid Flew Past Earth Yesterday, Coming Within 3,600 km

Near-Earth Asteroid 2023 BU seen as it passed Earth on January 26, 2023. Credit: Gianluca Masi, Virtual Telescope Project.

On January 26, a truck-sized asteroid flew past Earth, coming extremely close – within 3,600 km (2,200 miles) above the planet’s surface. This is well within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites and NASA says this flyby is one of the closest approaches by a near-Earth object ever recorded.

The asteroid, named 2023 BU’s has an estimated size of 3.5m to 8.5m across (11.5ft to 28ft). Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, who leads the Virtual Telescope Project, captured images and video of the flyby and said a huge audience joined in for the live feed. At its closest approached, it zoomed over the southern tip of South America at about 4:27 p.m. PST (7:27 p.m. EST.)

January 26, 2023January 26, 2023 by Evan Gough

Lucy Adds Another Asteroid to its Flyby List

This artist's illustration shows NASA's Lucy spacecraft close to one of its targets. NASA has added another asteroid, the eleventh, to Lucy's mission. Image Credit: NASA/SWRI/GSFC

In October 2021, NASA launched its ambitious Lucy mission. Its targets are asteroids, two in the main belt and eight Jupiter trojans, which orbit the Sun in the same path as Jupiter. The mission is named after early hominin fossils (Australopithecus afarensis,) and the name pays homage to the idea that asteroids are fossils from the Solar System’s early days of planet formation.

Visiting ten asteroids in one mission is the definition of ambitious, and now NASA is adding an eleventh.

Remove All Ads on Universe Today

Join our Patreon for as little as $3!

Get the ad-free experience for life

January 16, 2023January 11, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

How did Dimorphos Form?

NASA's DART spacecraft is due to collide with the smaller body of the Didymos binary asteroid system on Sept. 26th, 2022. Credit: ESA

The otherwise unremarkable double asteroid of Didymos and Dimorphos made headlines as the target of NASA’s successful Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission. With new details about the system emerging, astronomers have put together a hypothesis of how this strange double asteroid came to be.

January 8, 2023January 8, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

Are Chemical Rockets or Solar Sails Better to Return Resources from Asteroids?

It's long been thought that a giant asteroid, which broke up long ago in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, eventually made its way to Earth and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. New studies say that the dinosaurs may have been facing extinction before the asteroid strike, and that mammals were already on the rise. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If and when we ever get an asteroid mining industry off the ground, one of the most important decisions to be made in the structure of any asteroid mining mission would be how to get the resources back to where all of our other infrastructure is – somewhere around the Earth. That decision typically will focus on one of two propulsion methodologies – chemical rockets, such as those we already use to get us into space in the first place, or solar sails, which, while slower and unable to get us into orbit, don’t require any fuel. So, which propulsion methodology is better for these future missions? A study by researchers at the University of Glasgow looked at those two scenarios and came out with a clear-cut answer – solar sails.

January 7, 2023January 7, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

Arecibo Studied 191 Asteroids That Flew Past the Earth. All the Data are Available in a new Paper

Even from beyond the grave, Arecibo is still contributing to new discoveries. Back in October, researchers released a “treasure trove of data” from what was then the world’s most powerful radio telescope on the radar signatures of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). Not only will these observations help defend the planet if any of those asteroids happen to be hazardous, but they can also help the burgeoning asteroid mining industry scan for targets.

December 29, 2022December 29, 2022 by Evan Gough

Should Planetary Defence Take Center Stage?

This illustration shows NASA's NEO Surveyor against an infrared observation of a starfield made by the agency's WISE mission. NEO Surveyor is the first purpose-built space telescope that will advance NASA’s planetary defense efforts by finding and tracking hazardous near-Earth objects. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Throughout the Solar System, planets and moons bear the scars of a past fraught with collisions. The Moon, Mercury, and Mars are so scarred from these impacts that craters overlap one another on their surfaces. Earth was subject to the same bombardment, though most of its impact scars disappeared over time due to active geology.

But some are still visible, and we know how catastrophic some of these impacts were for life.

December 26, 2022December 26, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Is Mining in Space Socially Acceptable?

Asteroid mining concept. Credit: NASA/Denise Watt

Traditional mining has been subject to a negative stigma for some time. People, especially in developed countries, have a relatively negative view of this necessary economic activity. Primarily that is due to its environmental impacts – greenhouse gas emissions and habitat destruction are some of the effects that give the industry its negative image. Mining in space is an entirely different proposition – any greenhouse gases emitted on the Moon or asteroids are inconsequential, and there is no habitat to speak of on these barren rocks. So what is the general public’s opinion on mining in space? A paper from a group of researchers in Australia, one of the countries most impacted by the effects of terrestrial mining, now gives us an answer.

December 25, 2022December 25, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

NASA Makes Asteroid Defense a Priority, Moving its NEO Surveyor Mission Into the Development Phase

There’s an old adage in the engineering field – what gets funded gets built. So it’s sure to be a happy time over at the Planetary Society, as NEO Surveyor, the project the organization has primarily supported over the past few years, has made it through NASA’s grueling budgetary process to reach the “development” stage, with an eye for a launch of the system in 2028.

December 21, 2022December 22, 2022 by Matt Williams

What Kind of an Impact did DART Have on Dimorphos? The Science Results are Here

Tail — Two tails of dust ejected from the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system are seen in new images from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, Credit: NASA/ESA

On September 26th, NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft collided with Dimorphos, the small moonlet that orbits the larger Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) Didymos. The purpose was to test a planetary defense technique known as the kinetic impact method, where a spacecraft intentionally collides with a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHAs) to alter its course. Based on a post-collision analysis, NASA determined that DART’s impact altered Dimorphos’ orbital period by 33 minutes and caused tons of rock to be ejected from its surface.

Since the collision, NASA has also been monitoring the cloud of ejecta produced by the impact to see how it has since evolved. The purpose of this is to better understand what the DART spacecraft achieved at the impact site, how much of it was delivered by the spacecraft, and how much was due to the recoil produced by the ejection. On December 15th, during the Fall Meeting of the American Geophysical Union (AGU) in Chicago, members of the DART team provided the preliminary analysis of their findings.

December 15, 2022December 15, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

Rubble Pile Asteroids Might be the Best Places to Build Space Habitats

Illustration: SpaceX Crew Dragon at ISS — An illustration shows SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule approaching the International Space Station. (Credit: SpaceX)

The stars call to us, as Carl Sagan once said. Given the human drive to explore our world and expand our reach, it is likely only a matter of time before we begin to build our homes in the solar system. The Moon and Mars could be acceptable destinations, but nearby asteroids could also become homes, as a recent study shows.