Asteroids Archives

February 14, 2023February 14, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Another Meteoroid Discovered Right Before it Hits the Atmosphere

A meteoroid lights up the sky over the English Channel on February 12, 2023. Image courtesy of Muhammed Uzzal, via ESA.

A meteoroid lit up the sky above the English Channel early Monday morning February as it streaked through the atmosphere, and because it had been detected just a few hours beforehand – with expert precision on where it could be seen — skywatchers were able to capture the event.

Astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky found the 1-meter (3 ft) asteroid just half a day before it came through Earth’s atmosphere. Sárneczky used 60-cm Schmidt telescope at the Piszkéstet? Observatory in Hungary, and originally named it Sar2667. After multiple observations, the object was re-designated as 2023 CX1 and was predicted with 100% certainty to hit Earth in the skies above the English Channel. Astronomers continued to track the object, then it blazed through the atmosphere over Europe right on schedule.

February 6, 2023February 6, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

JWST Unexpectedly Finds a Small Asteroid During ‘Failed’ Observations

Illustration of Asteroid (Artist’s Impression). Credit: N. Bartmann (ESA/Webb), ESO/M. Kornmesser and S. Brunier, N. Risinger

While astronomers and engineers were trying to calibrate one of the James Webb Space Telescope’s instruments last summer, they serendipitously found a previously unknown small 100–200-meter (300-600 ft) asteroid in the main asteroid belt. Originally, the astronomers deemed the calibrations as a failed attempt because of technical glitches. But they noticed the asteroid while going through their data from the Mid-InfraRed Instrument (MIRI), and ended up finding what is likely the smallest object observed to date by JWST. It is also one of the smallest objects ever detected in our Solar System’s main belt of asteroids.

“We — completely unexpectedly — detected a small asteroid in publicly available MIRI calibration observations,” explained Thomas Müller, an astronomer at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Germany, in a press release. “The measurements are some of the first MIRI measurements targeting the ecliptic plane and our work suggests that many, new objects will be detected with this instrument.”

January 31, 2023January 31, 2023 by Evan Gough

Don’t Bother Trying to Destroy Rubble Pile Asteroids

Detailed view of the rubble-pile asteroid 25143 Itokawa visited by the Japanese spacecraft Hayabusa in 2005. Credit: JAXA

The asteroids in our Solar System are survivors. They’ve withstood billions of years of collisions. The surviving asteroids are divided into two groups: monolithic asteroids, which are intact chunks of planetesimals, and rubble piles, which are made of up fragments of shattered primordial asteroids.

It turns out there are far more rubble pile asteroids than we thought, and that raises the difficulty of protecting Earth from asteroid strikes.

January 27, 2023January 27, 2023 by Nancy Atkinson

Truck-Sized Asteroid Flew Past Earth Yesterday, Coming Within 3,600 km

Near-Earth Asteroid 2023 BU seen as it passed Earth on January 26, 2023. Credit: Gianluca Masi, Virtual Telescope Project.

On January 26, a truck-sized asteroid flew past Earth, coming extremely close – within 3,600 km (2,200 miles) above the planet’s surface. This is well within the orbit of geosynchronous satellites and NASA says this flyby is one of the closest approaches by a near-Earth object ever recorded.

The asteroid, named 2023 BU’s has an estimated size of 3.5m to 8.5m across (11.5ft to 28ft). Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, who leads the Virtual Telescope Project, captured images and video of the flyby and said a huge audience joined in for the live feed. At its closest approached, it zoomed over the southern tip of South America at about 4:27 p.m. PST (7:27 p.m. EST.)

January 26, 2023January 26, 2023 by Evan Gough

Lucy Adds Another Asteroid to its Flyby List

This artist's illustration shows NASA's Lucy spacecraft close to one of its targets. NASA has added another asteroid, the eleventh, to Lucy's mission. Image Credit: NASA/SWRI/GSFC

In October 2021, NASA launched its ambitious Lucy mission. Its targets are asteroids, two in the main belt and eight Jupiter trojans, which orbit the Sun in the same path as Jupiter. The mission is named after early hominin fossils (Australopithecus afarensis,) and the name pays homage to the idea that asteroids are fossils from the Solar System’s early days of planet formation.

Visiting ten asteroids in one mission is the definition of ambitious, and now NASA is adding an eleventh.

January 16, 2023January 11, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

How did Dimorphos Form?

NASA's DART spacecraft is due to collide with the smaller body of the Didymos binary asteroid system on Sept. 26th, 2022. Credit: ESA

The otherwise unremarkable double asteroid of Didymos and Dimorphos made headlines as the target of NASA’s successful Double Asteroid Redirect Test (DART) mission. With new details about the system emerging, astronomers have put together a hypothesis of how this strange double asteroid came to be.

January 8, 2023January 8, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

Are Chemical Rockets or Solar Sails Better to Return Resources from Asteroids?

It's long been thought that a giant asteroid, which broke up long ago in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, eventually made its way to Earth and led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. New studies say that the dinosaurs may have been facing extinction before the asteroid strike, and that mammals were already on the rise. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

If and when we ever get an asteroid mining industry off the ground, one of the most important decisions to be made in the structure of any asteroid mining mission would be how to get the resources back to where all of our other infrastructure is – somewhere around the Earth. That decision typically will focus on one of two propulsion methodologies – chemical rockets, such as those we already use to get us into space in the first place, or solar sails, which, while slower and unable to get us into orbit, don’t require any fuel. So, which propulsion methodology is better for these future missions? A study by researchers at the University of Glasgow looked at those two scenarios and came out with a clear-cut answer – solar sails.

January 7, 2023January 7, 2023 by Andy Tomaswick

Arecibo Studied 191 Asteroids That Flew Past the Earth. All the Data are Available in a new Paper

Even from beyond the grave, Arecibo is still contributing to new discoveries. Back in October, researchers released a “treasure trove of data” from what was then the world’s most powerful radio telescope on the radar signatures of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs). Not only will these observations help defend the planet if any of those asteroids happen to be hazardous, but they can also help the burgeoning asteroid mining industry scan for targets.

December 29, 2022December 29, 2022 by Evan Gough

Should Planetary Defence Take Center Stage?

This illustration shows NASA's NEO Surveyor against an infrared observation of a starfield made by the agency's WISE mission. NEO Surveyor is the first purpose-built space telescope that will advance NASA’s planetary defense efforts by finding and tracking hazardous near-Earth objects. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Throughout the Solar System, planets and moons bear the scars of a past fraught with collisions. The Moon, Mercury, and Mars are so scarred from these impacts that craters overlap one another on their surfaces. Earth was subject to the same bombardment, though most of its impact scars disappeared over time due to active geology.

But some are still visible, and we know how catastrophic some of these impacts were for life.

December 26, 2022December 26, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

Is Mining in Space Socially Acceptable?

Asteroid mining concept. Credit: NASA/Denise Watt

Traditional mining has been subject to a negative stigma for some time. People, especially in developed countries, have a relatively negative view of this necessary economic activity. Primarily that is due to its environmental impacts – greenhouse gas emissions and habitat destruction are some of the effects that give the industry its negative image. Mining in space is an entirely different proposition – any greenhouse gases emitted on the Moon or asteroids are inconsequential, and there is no habitat to speak of on these barren rocks. So what is the general public’s opinion on mining in space? A paper from a group of researchers in Australia, one of the countries most impacted by the effects of terrestrial mining, now gives us an answer.