Asteroid

Jupiter is a major player in protecting the Earth from impact events, and has been for billions of years. Between comets and asteroids impacting on Jupiter and being flung into the Sun or out of the Solar System entirely, Jupiter's enormous gravitational field has removed the greater proportion of debris left-over from the formation of the Solar System. Jupiter has again been caught in the act of attracting and eating dangerous space rocks—this time in simultaneous observations by two amateur astronomers.  Read More

After becoming the first spacecraft to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in July 2011, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has spent the last year mapping the giant asteroid Vesta. The spacecraft has now bid adieu to Vesta and is on its way to the dwarf planet Ceres to continue its mission to help shed light on the evolution of our solar system.  Read More

The Dawn spacecraft was the first to ever orbit an object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and has been studying the asteroid Vesta since July 2011, revealing unprecedented detail on its distant past and providing astronomers with a better picture of the early history of our solar system. Now, however, it's time to say goodbye – in only a few days' time, Dawn will make its escape from Vesta's gravitational grasp and start a two and a half-year journey toward the dwarf planet Ceres.  Read More

California-based non-profit B612 Foundation has announced its intention to place an asteroid-hunting infrared telescope into orbit around the Sun. Named Sentinel, the ambitious endeavor is to be the world's first privately funded deep space mission and will aim to map up to 90 percent of all asteroids larger than 140 meters (459 ft) in Earth’s region of the solar system. In addition to these sizable asteroids, Sentinel will further provide data on a number of smaller asteroids, down to a size of approximately 30 meters (98 ft) in diameter.  Read More

The threat of an asteroid hitting our home planet may not an immediate one, but it better be tackled before it becomes imminent. The brief visit of the 99942 Apophis asteroid in 2004 served as a reminder that a collision with Earth is by all means possible. Scientists have been working on a solution since then, and several bold plans were hatched. The latest one comes from Massimiliano Vasile and Christie Maddock from the University of Strathclyde in Scotland, who reckon we should build a spacecraft fitted with solar-powered lasers.  Read More

With the first manned mission to an asteroid planned for 2025, NASA has sent an international group of “aquanauts” to the ocean floor off the Florida coast to test concepts for such a mission. The four-person crew will spend 12 days 63 feet (19 m) below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean in the Aquarius lab located in the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary as part of the 16th excursion of the NASA Extreme Environment Mission Operations (NEEMO) program.  Read More

Potentially hazardous asteroids (PHAs) are a subset of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) that have the potential to come within five million miles (eight million kilometers) of Earth, and are of a size large enough to make it through Earth’s atmosphere to cause significant damage on a regional, or greater, scale. NASA’s asteroid-hunting NEOWISE mission has now provided the best estimate yet of the number of PHAs in our solar system, along with their origins and the potential dangers they might pose.  Read More

After becoming the first probe to enter orbit around an object in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter in July 2011, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has spent the last 10 months orbiting said object - the giant asteroid Vesta. During that period it has captured more than 20,000 images of Vesta and a multitude of data from different wavelengths of radiation. What it reveals is an asteroid that in many ways shares more in common with a small planet or Earth’s moon than it does with another asteroid.  Read More

“I’m Chris Lewicki, and I’m an asteroid miner!” These were the opening words spoken by the President and Chief Engineer of Planetary Resources Inc., as the asteroid mining company emerged from three years of silent running to outline its plans to mine Near-Earth Asteroids (NEAs) within the decade.  Read More