Items tagged with asteroid
In a cosmic game of hide and seek, an asteroid will pass in front of one of the biggest and brightest stars visible in the night sky. Asteroid Leona will pass in front of the star Alpha Orionis, also known as Betelgeuse (seen in the image above via NASA), which is a red supergiant in the constellation...
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NASA delivered a teaspoon size sample of the asteroid Bennu to be studied in the labs at the Natural History Museum in London. NASA describes the 500-meter (0.3 miles) wide asteroid as being the most dangerous rock in the solar system because it has a chance of hitting Earth within the next 300 years.
Scientists at...
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NASA's Lucy spacecraft surprises the space agency again with another unexpected find. Lucy will explore a record-breaking number of asteroids as it becomes the first mission to investigate the Jupiter Trojan asteroids.
Lucy is on a 12-year mission that will take the spacecraft right into the midst of a belt of...
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NASA’s Lucy probe cuts its teeth with its first up-close encounter with an asteroid named Dinkinesh before moving on to observe 10 other asteroids on its 12-year journey. Lucy had been tracking the asteroid since September 3, 2023.
According to NASA, the encounter was the first time that Lucy got a close look at an...
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NASA has collected a small amount of the rock and dust sample that its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft brought back from the asteroid Bennu. However, it is having a bit of trouble accessing the rest. That's because the team is having issues loosening two of the 35 fasteners on the Touch-and-Go Sample Acquisition Mechanism...
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Legendary Queen guitarist Brian May played a vital role in the OSIRIS-REx mission that successfully returned a sample of asteroid Bennu. May and his colleague, Claudia Manzoni, created stereoscopic images from the O-Rex data that helped the team locate a safe landing site for sample collection.
The 76-year-old...
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NASA's Psyche mission has been delayed slightly. However, the space agency still wants civilians to get psyched about the spacecraft traveling to a unique metal-rich asteroid orbiting the Sun between Mars and Jupiter. A new teaser trailer from NASA provides a little insight into the mission that scientists believe...
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NASA is making slight adjustments to the flight path of its OSIRIS-REx spacecraft, which is scheduled to deliver a sample capsule from Bennu, an asteroid the size of the Empire State Building, back to Earth. The final correction maneuvers ensured the spacecraft lands in a predetermined area on the Defense Department's...
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NASA is currently tracking five bus and airplane-sized asteroids that are expected to make close approaches to Earth this week. The near-Earth events come just ahead of the space agency's Psyche mission, which will launch next month and explore the metal-rich asteroid Bennu.
The five asteroids hurtling through...
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A retired technical fellow has devised a method for restructuring an asteroid into a large rotating space station. David Jensen says the project could be completed in as little as 12 years with a single rocket launch containing a base station, spider robots, and a modest set of supplies.
The idea of utilizing an...
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A relatively new algorithm designed to discover asteroids has spotted its first space rock—a 600-foot-long asteroid classified as potentially hazardous (don't worry, it's not going to smash into Earth). The algorithm was designed to be used with the upcoming Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which will scan the night sky in...
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NASA has reported that the DART spacecraft left a swarm of boulders in its wake after slamming into asteroid Dimorphos back in September of last year. The space agency describes what the asteroid is currently up to with the song "Shake, Rattle and Roll."
Double Asteroid Redirect Test, known as DART, is part of...
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NASA engineers and technicians are performing some of the final preparations for the Psyche spacecraft before its liftoff which is scheduled for October 5, 2023. Teams are working around the clock at Cape Canaveral, Florida, to make sure the spacecraft is ready for its journey to orbit a metal-rich asteroid, also...
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Scientists propose that antiglitch/glitch and fast radio bursts (FRBs) might be tied to a tidally captured asteroid by a magnetar. The model the scientists have created indicates an asteroid being tidally captured and disrupted by Galactic magnetar SGR J1935+2154.
A magnetar is a type of isolated neutron star made...
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A lady from a village in Alsace in east France shared her story about being rudely interrupted as she sipped on her coffee when something hit her on the chest, what she believes was a small meteorite fragment.. The lady says the small space rock first hit her roof before bouncing off and smacking into her...
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An asteroid roughly the size of a house will be making a nearby flyby of Earth tonight. Asteroid 2023 MU2 will be able to be viewed zipping by our home planet via a live feed later today.
2023 MU2 was actually only discovered on June 21, 2023, and announced the next day. The near-Earth asteroid is estimated to be...
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NASA has reported that two asteroids 100-feet (30-meters) or larger are making their closest approach to Earth today, June 18, 2023. The larger of the two asteroids is estimated to be 110-feet (34-meters), or roughly around the size of 10-story building.
Astronomers keep a watchful eye on the sky for any asteroids...
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After deciding to delay a mission to send a spacecraft to asteroid Psyche last summer, an independently appointed review board has given NASA and the agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) the green light to carry on. NASA and JPL convened the board last summer following the mission team's request to delay the...
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A potentially hazardous asteroid the size of the Empire State Building is hurtling toward Earth and you can watch its near approach live. Asteroid 1994 XD is expected to pass by at a distance of just eight times the distance of Earth from the moon.
Asteroid 1994 XD derives its name from the year it was discovered...
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A newly discovered asteroid has been detected and is said to be a quasi-moon, or fake moon, of Earth. The fake moon is actually asteroid 2023 FW13 and orbits the Sun in sync with Earth. Its orbit extends so far that "it sweeps out halfway to Mars and in halfway to Venus," according to a recent tweet from Sky and...
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The bright light from a meteor streaking across the night sky caught the attention of onlookers across north Queensland, before crashing into the ground creating a thundering boom. The spectacle was caught by various cameras throughout the area and shared on social media.
People from Cairns on the east coast of...
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Scientists took NASA's Webb telescope on a treasure hunt in the asteroid belt, and ended up finding as many questions as answers. Solar system scientists identified water vapor on Comet Read, an important clue in solving how water came about on Earth, but it was missing another key component: carbon dioxide.
NASA's...
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