Scientists have discovered that the target asteroid of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) may have been reshaped by the impact. A new investigation into the collision’s aftermath revealed that the asteroid, which is the smaller component of a binary asteroid system, exhibits a loose “rubble-pile” composition. DART slammed into the moonlet Dimorphos, which orbits … Read more
A detailed investigation of asteroid Ryugu samples has provided further evidence that the organic molecules which gave rise to life to our planet were brought here by ancient comets. These space rock samples were returned to Earth by Japan’s Hayabusa2 mission, which visited the spinning-top-like space rock Ryugu in 2018. Hayabusa2 spent around 18 months … Read more
Tasked with finding clues about origins of life on Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft scooped up pieces of a rugged, rubble-pile asteroid named Bennu in late 2020 and delivered them to Earth about two months ago. On Monday (Dec. 11), scientists got their first detailed description of some of that extraterrestrial collection. “We definitely have hydrated, … Read more
Scientists recently discovered an asteroid that tags along with Earth during its yearly journey around the sun. Dubbed 2023 FW13, the space rock is considered a “quasi-moon” or “quasi-satellite,” meaning it orbits the sun in a similar time frame as Earth does, but is only slightly influenced by our planet’s gravitational pull. It is estimated … Read more
On June 30, 1908, an asteroid flattened an estimated 80 million trees in Siberia over 830 square miles (2,150 square kilometers). Dubbed the Tunguska event, it is considered the biggest asteroid impact in recorded history. Yet no one has ever found the asteroid fragments or an impact site. The asteroid lit up the skies in … Read more
Rest easy: Earth probably won’t be creamed by a killer asteroid in the next 1,000 years. New research accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal and available on the preprint server arXiv.org finds that none of the kilometer-wide (0.6 mile) asteroids that travel near Earth are likely to hit the planet in the next millennium. … Read more
A potentially hazardous near-Earth asteroid is spinning faster and faster every year, and researchers aren’t sure why. The space rock, known as 3200 Phaethon, is around 3.4 miles (5.4 kilometers) wide, and its orbit through the solar system takes it closer to the sun than any other named asteroid, reaching a minimum distance of around … Read more
The massive asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs also triggered mega-earthquakes that lasted months. Around 66 million years ago, an asteroid approximately 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) across smashed into Earth near the Yucatan Peninsula, plunging the planet into darkness and causing a mass extinction that wiped out 80% of animal life — including all the … Read more
One side of the moon is littered with far more craters than the other, and researchers finally know why: A massive asteroid that slammed into the moon around 4.3 billion years ago wreaked havoc in the moon’s mantle, according to a new study. More than 9,000 visible craters pockmark the moon, thanks to barrage of … Read more
As the inhabitants of an ancient Middle Eastern city now called Tall el-Hammam went about their daily business one day about 3,600 years ago, they had no idea an unseen icy space rock was speeding toward them at about 38,000 mph (61,000 kph). Flashing through the atmosphere, the rock exploded in a massive fireball about … Read more
