Today, astronomers and space enthusiasts around the world collectively marvel at our erratic presence in the universe, especially as we drift through the cosmos among large asteroids like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs 66 million years ago. June 30 is Asteroid Day, an annual holiday that reflects on the possibility of a planet-destroying … Read more
This year’s Asteroid Day has events planned, including one at the Skyland Lodge Conference Center in Virginia’s Shenandoah National Park on Sunday at 9 p.m. June 30, 2015 marked the first “Asteroid Day” — a “global awareness movement where people from around the world come together to learn about asteroids and what we can do … Read more
(The Hill) — An asteroid the size of a football stadium cut a path between Earth and the moon Saturday morning — the second of two astronomical near-collisions in three days. Near miss is a relative term in this case: Saturday’s asteroid, 2024 MK, came within 300,000 kilometers of Earth. On Thursday, asteroid 2011 UL21 … Read more
Scientists analyze samples NASA brought back from an asteroid got a surprising detection that may be the room rock was once part of a bygone era Ocean world. What the team found was water-soluble magnesium-sodium phosphate in mottled rocks – a mineral no one expected, as it didn’t show up in the data the spacecraft … Read more
Corner down icon An icon in the shape of an angle pointing downwards. A nearby asteroid called Bennu, which poses no threat to Earth. NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona/CSA/York/MDA via AP NASA ran a new tabletop simulation of the discovery of a large asteroid heading towards Earth. Experts feared that Congress would not appropriate funding for a … Read more
Orbital diagram for Bennu along with the terrestrial planets, looking down from above the Sun’s North Pole (top) and along the ecliptic plane (bottom). Source: Meteoritics and planetary science (2014). DOI: 10.1111/kaarten.12353 Researchers from Curtin University are part of a global team of scientists investigating how our solar system formed. They do this by uncovering … Read more
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and more. CNN — Early analysis of a sample taken from the asteroid Bennu suggests the space rock may have had an unexpectedly watery past, possibly even splitting off from an ancient ocean planet. NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission … Read more
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news about fascinating discoveries, scientific developments and more. CNN — An early analysis of a sample collected from the asteroid Bennu suggests the space rock may have had an unexpected watery past. The rock may even have split off from an ancient ocean … Read more
On September 24, 2023, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft dropped a capsule on Earth containing pristine carbonaceous regolith collected from the near-Earth asteroid Bennu. These samples were obtained after the probe completed an impressive seven-year tour of the solar system and back. Since these pieces of space rock arrived (about 120 grams of sample, to be precise), … Read more
This article was reviewed according to Science fact checked trusted source proofread OK! A small portion of the asteroid Bennu sample returned by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, shown in microscope images. The top left panel shows a dark Bennu particle, about a millimeter long, with an outer crust of bright phosphate. The other three panels show … Read more