Asteroids
Remember the DART impact? Hubble Made a Movie of the Debris
When NASA crashed a 610 kg (1,340 lb) impactor into tiny Dimorphos, a moon of the asteroid Didymos, it was all part…
Recreating the Extreme Forces of an Asteroid Impact in the Lab
About 50,000 years ago, a nickel-iron meteorite some 50 meters across plowed into the Pleistocene-era grasslands of what is now…
Astronomers Find a Group of Water-rich Asteroids
If you've ever been at sea or visited a seacoast, you probably looked out at the vast expanse of ocean…
A 500-Meter-Long Asteroid Flew Past Earth, and Astronomers Were Watching
An asteroid the size of the Empire State Building flew past Earth in early February, coming within 1.8 million km…
ESA is Building an Early Warning System for Dangerous Asteroids
The European Space Agency is working on a new mission that would act as an early warning system for dangerous,…
Another Meteoroid Discovered Right Before it Hits the Atmosphere
A meteoroid lit up the sky above the English Channel early Monday morning February as it streaked through the atmosphere,…
JWST Unexpectedly Finds a Small Asteroid During ‘Failed’ Observations
While astronomers and engineers were trying to calibrate one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s instruments last summer, they serendipitously…
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…
Truck-Sized Asteroid Flew Past Earth Yesterday, Coming Within 3,600 km
On January 26, a truck-sized asteroid flew past Earth, coming extremely close – within 3,600 km (2,200 miles) above the…
Lucy Adds Another Asteroid to its Flyby List
In October 2021, NASA launched its ambitious Lucy mission. Its targets are asteroids, two in the main belt and eight…