Planetary Defense

A New Space Telescope will Map the Universe and Help Protect the Earth from Asteroids

Can we secure our place in the Solar System? Not in any absolute sense because nature can be very unpredictable.…

1 month ago

DART Had a Surprising Impact on its Target

After NASA's DART mission slammed into asteroid Dimorphous in September 2022, scientists determined the impact caused tons of rock to…

7 months ago

Here's How NASA is Planning to Protect Earth From Asteroids and Comets

The large impact craters dotting our planet are powerful reminders that asteroids and comets strike the Earth from time to…

11 months ago

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…

1 year ago

LICIACube Sends Home Images of the DART Impact and the Damage to Dimorphos

The Light Italian CubeSat for Imaging of Asteroids (LICIACube) has returned a series of close-up images of the asteroid Dimorphos,…

1 year ago

China is Building an Asteroid Deflection Mission of its own, due for Launch in 2025

There's an old joke that the dinosaurs are only extinct because they didn't develop a space agency. The implication, of…

2 years ago

Space Force is Releasing Decades of Tracking Data on a Thousand Bright Meteor Fireballs

When a meteoroid enters the Earth's atmosphere at a very high speed it heats up. This heating up produces a…

2 years ago

Last-Minute Defense Against an Asteroid That Could Obliterate it Before Impact

Gazing at the night sky can evoke a sense of wonder regarding humanity's place in the Universe. But that's not…

2 years ago

You Can Blow Up an Asteroid Just a few Months Before it Hits Earth and Prevent 99% of the Damage

So far, the battle between life on Earth and asteroids has been completely one-sided. But not for long. Soon, we'll…

2 years ago

If you Want to Move an Asteroid, you Need the Right Kind of Nuclear Explosion

A new collaborative study has shown that nuclear explosions could be used to deflect asteroids, protecting Earth from cataclysmic impacts.

3 years ago