Asteroids
Asteroid Bennu is Getting Some Official Names for its Surface Features
Late last summer, NASA and the International Astronomical Union’s Working Group for Planetary System Nomenclature (a.k.a WGPSN) approved the naming…
OSIRIS-REx did its Closest Flyover Yet, just 250 Meters Above its Sample Site
NASA's OSIRIS-REx is getting closer, physically and temporally, to its primary goal. The spacecraft arrived at Bennu at the end…
Even Though it Was Observing an Asteroid, OSIRIS-REx Accidentally Spotted a Black Hole
While the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft was orbiting asteroid Bennu, one of the instruments on board happened to catch a glimpse of…
Astronomers Discover a Tiny New Temporary Moon for the Earth. Welcome to the Family 2020 CD3
Astronomers are increasingly interested in Near-Earth Objects, or NEOs. There are ongoing efforts to find them all and catalog them…
New Images of the “Golf Ball” Asteroid Pallas
New images of the asteroid Pallas (the clearest and most detailed to date) reveal that it looks like a "golf…
OSIRIS-REx Flew 620 Meters Above its Landing Site. Confirms that it’s a Boulder-Strewn Nightmare, Just Like the Rest of Bennu
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft reached its target, asteroid Bennu (101955 Bennu), on December 3rd, 2018. Since then, the spacecraft has been…
The Evidence is Leaning More and More Towards an Asteroid Ending the Dinosaurs
Which camp are you in: volcanoes? Or asteroids? When it comes to the extinction of the dinosaurs, science has whittled…
An Asteroid has been Found that Orbits the Sun Closer than Venus
Astronomers at Caltech's Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) have discovered an asteroid that orbits inside Venus. Though other asteroids have a…
The Site Has Been Chosen! Here’s Where OSIRIS-REx is Going To Take a Sample from Bennu
NASA has chosen the sampling site for its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft. After narrowing it down to four potential sites and examining…
Why Are Particles Getting Ejected Off of Asteroid Bennu?
NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft arrived at asteroid Bennu in December 2018, and just one week later, it discovered something unusual about…