Tag: Asteroids
-
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft returns unfamiliar views of a familiar world
Not quite halfway through a six-year sojourn through the Solar System, a NASA spacecraft used a close encounter with Mars last week as a dress rehearsal for its arrival at the Solar System’s largest metal asteroid in 2029. The Psyche mission launched more than two-and-a-half years ago, in October 2023, from Kennedy Space Center, Florida,…
-
Rubin Observatory team discovers 11,000 new asteroids, with help from University of Washington software
A model of the inner solar system shows asteroids discovered by the Rubin Observatory in light teal. Previously known asteroids are dark blue. The model highlights almost 12,700 asteroids that the Rubin team has discovered over the course of a year and a half. (Photo: NSF–DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC /…
-
Space Science in 2026: New lunar explorers, Mars missions, and space telescopes
With many missions on the manifest, the new year promises to be packed with space science. Two interplanetary spacecraft will arrive at their destinations as another Mars window opens in late 2026. Meanwhile, multiple space telescopes have their launch dates set for this year, and the schedule promises an increased cadence for lunar missions. The…
-
Rubin Observatory spots an asteroid that spins fast enough to set a record
An artist’s conception zeroes in on a main-belt asteroid called 2025 MN45, which makes a full rotation in less than two minutes. (Credit: NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory / NOIRLab / SLAC / AURA / P. Marenfeld) Astronomers say they’ve found an asteroid that spins faster than other space rocks of its size. The asteroid,…
-
Software suggests Rubin Observatory will discover millions of solar system objects
A new type of computer simulation predicts that the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile will discover millions of previously undetected objects in the solar system over the course of the coming decade. The discovery campaign, which is due to begin in earnest later this year, should expand the known small-body populations in the solar…
-
China extends its reach into the Solar System with launch of asteroid mission
A Chinese spacecraft built to collect specimens from an unexplored asteroid and return them to Earth successfully launched Wednesday from a military-run spaceport in the country’s mountainous interior. Liftoff aboard a Long March 3B rocket at 1:31 pm EDT (17:31 UTC) from the Xichang launch base kicked off the second mission in a series of…
-
Don’t panic, but an asteroid has a 1.9% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
Something in the sky captured the attention of astronomers in the final days of 2024. A telescope in Chile scanning the night sky detected a faint point of light, and it didn’t correspond to any of the thousands of known stars, comets, and asteroids in astronomers’ all-sky catalog. The detection on December 27 came from…
-
Don’t panic, but an asteroid has a 1.9% chance of hitting Earth in 2032
Something in the sky captured the attention of astronomers in the final days of 2024. A telescope in Chile scanning the night sky detected a faint point of light, and it didn’t correspond to any of the thousands of known stars, comets, and asteroids in astronomers’ all-sky catalog. The detection on December 27 came from…
-
Scientists find building blocks of life in OSIRIS-REx samples, discover potentially dangerous asteroid
Scientists from NASA’s OSIRIS-REx asteroid sample return mission recently delivered remarkable findings about asteroid 101955 Bennu after the mission returned its samples to Earth in 2023. While scientists revealed the OSIRIS-REx findings this week, a newly discovered asteroid reached level three on the 10-point Torino space impactor hazard scale, the second highest rating given to…
-
Bennu asteroid samples yield watery history, key molecules for life
A bright fireball streaked across the sky above mountains, glaciers, and spruce forest near the town of Revelstoke in British Columbia, Canada, on the evening of March 31, 1965. Fragments of this meteorite, discovered by beaver trappers, fell over a lake. A layer of ice saved them from the depths and allowed scientists a peek…