Asteroids
Three New Potentially Hazardous Asteroids Discovered, Including a big one That Measures 1.5 km Across
An asteroid 1.5 km across is no joke. Even a much smaller one, about the size of a house, can…
When an Asteroid Gets Close to Earth, we get a Rare Opportunity to Learn What it’s Made of
Gravity calculations can provide plenty of insight into a variety of phenomena. Everything from Einstein rings to the rocket equation…
Arecibo Won’t Be Rebuilt
The National Science Foundation announced last week that it won’t rebuild or replace the iconic Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico,…
Success! DART Impact Shortened Asteroid’s Orbit Time by 32 Minutes
NASA says its DART spacecraft caused a larger-than-expected change in the path of its target asteroid when they collided two…
Scientists Have Been Underestimating the Asteroid That Created the Biggest Known Crater on Earth
Ancient impacts played a powerful role in Earth's complex history. On other Solar System bodies like the Moon or Mercury,…
A Single High-Resolution Image of Dimorphos Stacked From DART’s Final Images
Here’s a sharper view of Dimorphos, the small asteroid moonlet that the DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally crashed…
This is the Last Thing DART saw as it Smashed Into its Asteroid Target
The first-ever planetary defense technology demonstration mission successfully conducted its mission, slamming into the surface of a distant asteroid and…
Watch OSIRIS-REx's Complex Orbital Path Around Bennu in This Cool Animation
The OSIRIS-REx spacecraft conducted a two-year reconnaissance and sample collection at the asteroid Bennu, providing crucial data about the 500-meter-wide…
OSIRIS-REx Would Have Sunk Deep into Asteroid Bennu if it Tried to Land
A pair of studies published in Science and Science Advances have helped identify that NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource…
We’ll be Building Self-Replicating Probes to Explore the Milky Way Sooner Than you Think. Why Haven’t ETIs?
The future can arrive in sudden bursts. What seems a long way off can suddenly jump into view, especially when…