Potentially Hazardous Asteroids

If You’re Trying to Prevent an Asteroid Impact, the Technical and Political Challenges are Staggering

While preparing for the threat of an asteroid strike might seem like a hypothetical exercise, it's really not. The Solar…

4 months ago

Don’t Panic Over the Risk of an Asteroid Smashup in 2046

A newly discovered asteroid called 2023 DW has generated quite a buzz over the past week, due to an estimated…

1 year ago

Don’t Bother Trying to Destroy Rubble Pile Asteroids

The asteroids in our Solar System are survivors. They've withstood billions of years of collisions. The surviving asteroids are divided…

1 year ago

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…

1 year ago

NASA’s New Asteroid Impact Monitoring System Comes Online

An asteroid striking Earth is a genuine possibility. There are tens of thousands of asteroids classified as Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs),…

2 years ago

NASA Launches DART, to Learn how to Defend the Earth From a Future Asteroid Impact

NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) just launched and will intercept a Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) in ten months!

2 years ago

What Are Your Options When you’ve Only Got Hours or Days to Prevent an Asteroid Impact?

Imagine a scenario where we detect an asteroid heading straight for Earth. Imagine that it will arrive in a couple…

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

OSIRIS-Rex got to Know Bennu Really Well. Apparently, There’s now a 1-in-1,750 Chance That it’ll hit Earth by 2300

Asteroid Bennu is one of the two most hazardous known asteroids in our Solar System. Luckily, the OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral…

3 years ago

NASA Discovers 72 New Asteroids Near Earth

Since 2013, the NEOWISE mission has surveyed more than 19,000 asteroids and comets and discovered 72 new Near Earth Objects…

8 years ago