Asteroids
Finally, Let’s Look at the Asteroid Treasure Returned to Earth by OSIRIS-REx
NASA's OSIRIS-REx delivered its precious cargo to Earth on September 24th, 2023. The sample from asteroid Bennu is contained inside…
Engineers Finally Open OSIRIS-REx’s Sample Container
We have all been there, had that one stubborn jar of jam that we just can’t open. Maybe you grab…
Miniaturized Jumping Robots Could Study An Asteroid’s Gravity
Missions focusing on small bodies in the solar system have been coming thick and fast lately. OSIRIS-Rex, Psyche, and Rosetta…
Finally. A Productive Use for Nuclear Weapons: Asteroid Defense
While it has been a favorite disaster movie theme, nuking an incoming asteroid in the real world has been touted…
Psyche Gives Us Its First Images of Space
NASA's Psyche mission began eight weeks ago when it launched from the Kennedy Space Center. While it won't reach its…
The New Asteroid Moon Discovered by Lucy Just Got its Own Name
When NASA's Lucy mission flew past asteroid Dinkinesh on November 1, 2023, it made the surprising discovery the asteroid had…
Contact Binary Asteroids are Common, but We’ve Never Seen One Form. So Let’s Make One
Ever want to play a game of cosmic billiards? That's commonly how the DART mission was described when it successfully…
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…
An Asteroid Will Occult Betelgeuse on December 12th
I cannot for the life of me remember when it was or what it was but a fair few years…
Some of the Moon's Craters are From Interstellar Impacts. Can We Tell Which?
By discovering two interstellar objects (ISOs), we know that asteroids and comets from other star systems pass through the Solar…