Tagged: asteroid

Now just a year and a half from launch, the mission to explore a metal-rich asteroid will soon begin assembling and testing the spacecraft. NASA’s Psyche mission has passed a critical milestone that moves it a step closer to launch. After an intense review of...

Since its launch in September 2016, the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft has traveled billions of miles, mapped the surface of an asteroid in unprecedented detail, and made new scientific discoveries about near-Earth asteroids. Now, it’s preparing to bring a piece of asteroid Bennu home. On May 10,...

The largest asteroid to pass by Earth this year will swing closest on Sunday, giving astronomers a rare chance for a good look at a space rock that formed at the dawn of our solar system. While in astronomical terms this marks a close encounter...

The near-Earth object was thought to pose a slight risk of impacting Earth in 2068, but now radar observations have ruled that out. After its discovery in 2004, asteroid 99942 Apophis had been identified as one of the most hazardous asteroids that could impact Earth....

  The largest asteroid to pass by Earth this year has made its closest approach, posing no threat of a cataclysmic collision but giving astronomers a rare chance to study a rock formed during the beginning of our solar system. The asteroid was two million...

A reasonably small 4-8 m asteroid recently flew by Earth, passing close to satellites orbiting in the geostationary ring at a distance of about 42 735 km from Earth’s centre and only about 1200 km from the nearest satellite. fter the initial discovery, observers around...

An asteroid wider than two professional football fields is set to fly safely past Earth on Sept. 14, according to NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies. The space rock, known as asteroid 2020 QL2, is more than 120 meters (393 feet) in diameter, the government...

While 2020 continues to be a difficult year, there is a little good news to look forward to tonight (June 5): a near-Earth asteroid will whiz safely by our planet, and astronomers may be able to see the monster rock’s flight through telescopes. The asteroid,...

Our solar system’s most infamous asteroid will pass by Earth on Friday (March 5), and with a high-end telescope you can watch it as it safely whizzes by our planet. We’re talking about none other than asteroid 99942 Apophis, which will come even closer to...

Mysterious repeating bursts of radio waves that fire in random patterns might come from neutron stars blasting asteroids with magnetic winds that travel at nearly the speed of light, a new study finds. Fast radio bursts, or FRBs, are intense pulses of radio waves that...