asteroid

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Rovers Send Back First Photos of Asteroid Surface

'Jumping' robots are now on Ryugu

(Newser) - New photos taken on the surface of an asteroid show that it is (drum roll, please) ... rocky. It may be no surprise, but Japanese space agency scientists and engineers are thrilled by the images being sent to Earth by two jumping robotic rovers that they dropped onto an asteroid about...

Asteroid Far Brighter Than Moon Dazzles Over US

NASA meteor cameras capture it above Alabama

(Newser) - People up late in the Southeast one night last week had the chance to catch a brief but spectacular light show. In a Facebook post , NASA says its meteor cameras picked up a small asteroid about 1:19am Friday that burned through the night sky and would have been tough...

Mystery of Our First Interstellar Visitor Solved

Oumuamua was a comet, not an asteroid, scientists say

(Newser) - Last year's visitor from another star system —a cigar-shaped object briefly tumbling through our cosmic neck of the woods—has now been identified as a comet. A European-led team makes the case in Wednesday's edition of the journal Nature, the AP reports. Telescopes first spotted the mysterious...

Japan's Asteroid Explorer Reaches Its Destination

Its mission involves making a new crater

(Newser) - A Japanese spacecraft arrived at an asteroid Wednesday after a 3.5-year journey to undertake a first-ever experiment: blow a crater in the rocky surface to collect samples and bring them back to Earth. The unmanned Hayabusa2 spacecraft reached its base of operations about 12 miles from the asteroid and...

New Asteroid Flies Backward, Comes From Another Sun

Known as 2015 BZ509, it's only the second of its kind ever found

(Newser) - Just months after the discovery of our first known interstellar visitor , it turns out there's another asteroid from yet another star system residing in our cosmic club in plain view. Per the AP , scientists reported Monday that this interstellar resident is an asteroid sharing Jupiter's orbit but circling...

Inside NASA&#39;s Plan to Maybe Nuke an Asteroid
NASA May Go
Armageddon
on Asteroid
Mar 21, 2018 5:03 PM CDT

NASA May Go Armageddon on Asteroid

Plan to maybe nuke asteroid called Bennu that might hit Earth in 2135

(Newser) - Operation HAMMER may sound like the villain's master scheme from a Roger Moore-era James Bond film, but it's actually NASA's plan to deal with asteroids threatening the Earth—such as one the size of the Empire State Building that could crash into the planet in 2135, Staten...

Asteroid Makes a Close Pass on Friday

2018 CB will be much closer to us than the moon, but there's no danger

(Newser) - Celebrate the end of the work week and continued survival of our planet Friday with a glance up at the sky. There, you could get a glimpse of an asteroid whipping past Earth at a distance of 39,000 miles—roughly five times closer to us than the moon—around...

Earth to Be Visited by a Halloween &#39;Skull&#39;
Earth Will
Get a Spooky
Visitor in 2018
In Case You Missed It
Dec 30, 2017 5:58 PM CST

Earth Will Get a Spooky Visitor in 2018

Skull-shaped asteroid expected to zip by in November

(Newser) - Earth will get its own Halloween decoration next year, though a little late. In mid-November, a skull-shaped asteroid will make its second flyby past Earth since it was discovered just beyond the moon in October 2015. It went on to pass by Earth on Oct. 31, 2015, prompting it to...

Scientists to Check if This 'Messenger' Comes From Aliens

Green Bank telescope will scan 'Oumuamua for signs of alien technology

(Newser) - It's unlikely that the first object found to have visited our solar system from interstellar space is carrying a message from aliens, but scientists will listen for one anyway. Beginning Wednesday, the Green Bank telescope in West Virginia will observe the mysterious cigar-shaped 'Oumuamua across four radio transmission...

Meet 'Oumuamua, Our First Guest From Another Solar System

And scientists think there could be thousands more just like it passing through

(Newser) - Houston, we have a visitor—and astronomers think there could be 10,000 more just like it "lurking" in wait, as the Guardian puts it. Meet 1I/2017 U1, or 'Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "messenger" or "scout"), which scientists say is an asteroid from another solar system—...

'We Are Dealing With Our 1st Truly Identified Alien Visitor'

Astronomers believe they've confirmed object arrived in our solar system from another

(Newser) - There's something strange in the solar neighborhood. "We've never seen anything like this before," Rob Weryk tells the New York Times . Earlier this month, the astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy discovered a mysterious object zipping through our solar system. Calculations show it...

Asteroid Passing Earth Thursday Won't Hit Us—Yet

'Things do hit other things, and we’re not special in that regard'

(Newser) - The Earth will be having a close call—astronomically speaking—when a 65-foot-wide asteroid buzzes past on Thursday, the Christian Science Monitor reports. According to AFP , asteroid 2012 TC4 will come within 27,000 miles of Earth—about one-eighth the distance between the Earth and moon and about 5,000...

Asteroid Just Flew by Earth in Record-Setting Fashion

Astronomers get first up-close look at 'Florence'

(Newser) - There was no reason to fret, but perhaps reason to be wowed: "Florence," an asteroid stretching an estimated 2.7 miles wide, became the largest known asteroid to come as close as it did to our planet when it whizzed by Friday at 8:06am EDT. But though...

When Dinosaurs Were Killed, Earth Went Dark for 2 Years

New study shows climate effects of asteroid impact

(Newser) - When a 6-mile-wide asteroid crashed into the Gulf of Mexico 66 million years ago, it caused a devastating wave of earthquakes, volcanoes, and tsunamis that killed untold number of animals and ended the reign of the dinosaurs. Then things got really bad. In a study published Monday in PNAS , scientists...

Asteroid That Wiped Out Dinosaurs Hit in Exact Wrong Place

An impact in deep ocean would have been much less catastrophic

(Newser) - Humans might never have appeared on Earth had an asteroid 66 million years ago hit a spot other than the one it did, a new BBC documentary suggests. The asteroid that felled the dinosaurs hit a shallow sea near Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, sending a dense cloud of sulfur into...

Mega Asteroid to Buzz Earth on Wednesday

Not to worry, says NASA, it's still really far away

(Newser) - Here's one less thing to worry about. A giant asteroid is hurtling toward Earth, but the folks at NASA say there is no chance it could hit us. The space rock the size of the Rock of Gibraltar, per AFP , or six NFL football fields, per CNN , will make...

Futuristic Skyscraper Is Out of This World

What if your office traveled thousands of miles a day?

(Newser) - Building from the ground up is so last century. Skyscrapers of the future could very well hang from an asteroid placed into orbit over Earth, suspended over a landscape their occupants parachute down to as part of their commute home. Sound bonkers? Wackadoo? Out of this world? Popular Mechanics uses...

NASA, FEMA Simulated Asteroid Strike on Los Angeles

In their scenario, city had 4-year warning

(Newser) - A 330-foot asteroid on a collision course with downtown Los Angeles. Four years to try to stop it—or carry out mass evacuations ahead of certain devastation. That's not the plot of an unoriginal new movie, but the scenario behind a recent NASA-FEMA exercise, the New York Times reports....

New NASA 'Scout' System Silently Keeping You Safe

"Scout" and "Sentry" systems monitor the cosmos for any asteroids that could threaten Earth

(Newser) - NASA is hard at work to protect the Earth from asteroid threats, NPR reports. The agency's new "Scout" detection system scans the skies above our planet for small, nearby objects that might enter Earth's orbit. In fact, a small one between 5 and 25 meters across will...

NASA to Chase Asteroid That Has Slight Chance of Hitting Earth

But even if Bennu does strike in 170 years, it won't be end times

(Newser) - There's an asteroid out there that might slam into Earth in about 170 years, but contrary to some recent scary-sounding headlines, it won't wipe out Earthlings if it does, reports Space.com . "We're not talking about an asteroid that could destroy the Earth," says Dante...

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