Asteroids

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…

3 months ago

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…

3 months ago

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…

3 months ago

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…

4 months ago

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…

4 months ago

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…

4 months ago

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…

4 months ago

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…

5 months ago

Happy Asteroid Day! Schweickart Prize Spotlights Planetary Defense

Every year on June 30, Asteroid Day marks the anniversary of a meteor airburst in 1908 that leveled hundreds of…

5 months ago

Can We Use An Asteroid’s Own Dust to Deflect It?

Deflecting potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) is one of humanity's most critical long-term efforts to ensure we don't suffer the fate…

5 months ago