When NASA’s Lucy mission passed by the near-Earth asteroid Dinkinesh last November, it discovered that Dinkinesh had a companion — a little moonlet that astronomers soon named Selam. And now, scientists have measured Selam’s age. Their estimate suggests that tiny Selam separated from its larger partner Dinkinesh just 2 to 3 million years ago, making […]
Samples collected from asteroid Ryugu appear to hide secrets of the solar system’s past, the bombardment that asteroids presently endure as they drift between planets, and perhaps even the blueprints for future asteroid mining missions. As asteroids explore interplanetary space, they are exposed to high-energy particles jettisoned from the sun in the form of the […]
Sign up for CNN’s Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. An unusual asteroid traveling near Earth is thought to be a chunk of the moon, but exactly how it ended up zooming through the solar system has remained a mystery. Now, researchers say they’ve made a […]
Late last year, NASA scientists pressed start on a highly anticipated space mission. Basically, they launched a spacecraft toward an asteroid that could very well be made entirely of metal, a composition that appears to be a rarity — at least, in our solar system’s vicinity. The robotic adventurer is called Psyche, and its namesake […]
An asteroid discovered Tuesday (April 9) will make an extremely close, but harmless, pass by planet Earth today (April 11). Asteroid 2024 GJ2 is roughly the size of a car and, since its discovery this week, astronomers have calculated that the space rock will graze by Earth at a mere-12 thousand-mile (19.3-thousand-kilometer) distance — that’s […]
Last November, when NASA’s Lucy spacecraft flew past its first official asteroid target named Dinkinesh, it found the space rock was not one, not two but three rocks huddled together. While scientists were surprised to spot Selam, Dinkinesh’s natural satellite, they were shocked to discover that Selam itself was, in fact, two objects melded together. […]
Over two million years ago, a giant asteroid slammed into Mars, scarring the surface with one massive crater and around two billion smaller individual craters. These secondary craters appear across a region of 1,000 miles (1,800 kilometers), making this asteroid event one of the biggest impacts seen on the Red Planet in relatively recent history. […]
The shape of the asteroid Dimorphos was changed when NASA’s DART spacecraft deliberately crashed into it in 2022 as part of a test of humanity’s planetary defense capabilities. DART, the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was designed to show whether we could divert a potentially hazardous asteroid away from Earth. It was sent to a binary […]
By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) – When NASA sent its DART spacecraft to slam into the asteroid Dimorphos in 2022, the U.S. space agency demonstrated that it was possible to change a celestial object’s trajectory, if needed, to protect Earth. It turns out that this collision changed not only the asteroid’s path but its shape […]
The asteroid Apophis, infamous because it’s headed to brush past Earth in 2029, most likely isn’t something to worry about, a new study finds. This space rock, scientists calculated, will not collide with other space rocks that could worryingly alter its orbit and redirect it toward Earth — at least until the day it swings […]
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft is targeting a small near-Earth asteroid as part of its extended mission — and you could help name the space rock. The asteroid, designated 2001 CC21, or 98943, is roughly 2,300 feet (700 meters) wide. The Hayabusa2 probe will fly by the asteroid at high speed in July 2026, if all goes […]
Move over, moon rocks: Space Center Houston has a new type of space stone in its showcase. The official visitor center for NASA’s Johnson Space Center on Friday (March 1) became only the second place in the world where the public can see a sample of the asteroid Bennu as collected and brought back to […]