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Explanation: Meteors can be colorful. While the human eye usually cannot discern many colors, cameras often can. Pictured here is a fireball, a disintegrating meteor that was not only one of the brightest the photographer has ever seen, but colorful. The meteor was captured by chance in mid-July with a camera set up on Hochkar Mountain in Austria to photograph the central band of our Milky Way galaxy. The radiant grit, likely cast off by a comet or asteroid long ago, had the misfortune to enter Earth's atmosphere. Colors in meteors usually originate from ionized chemical elements released as the...

The Hubble Space Telescope has spotted the gory aftermath of the first-ever intentional collision between a spacecraft and an asteroid, revealing a debris field of at least 37 "boulders" flung thousands of miles into space.On Sept. 26, NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) spacecraft disintegrated as it smashed into the asteroid Dimorphos, which is 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth, successfully changing the asteroid's trajectory.Now, by using Hubble to study the impact, astronomers have found that DART's roughly 14,540 mph (23,400 km/h) impact on the asteroid produced a "swarm of boulders." The rocks, which range from 3 to...

Some 717 million years ago, glaciers covered the globe. Earlier eruptions may have triggered the event. CLAUS LUNAU/SCIENCE SOURCE ***************************************************** About 717 million years ago, a climate catastrophe struck the planet, as temperatures plunged and glaciers enveloped the globe. The cause of this “Snowball Earth” episode has been mysterious, but it took place around the same time as a massive outburst of volcanism. Many researchers thought there might be a connection. But the timing was uncertain. Now, more precise dates, reported last month in Earth and Planetary Science Letters (EPSL) and in November 2022 in Science Advances, show the eruptions...

Tiny spheres of once-molten metal magnetically dredged from the seafloor could be pieces from IM1, a potential interstellar meteor that struck Earth in 2014 Over the past two weeks, I have circumnavigated the globe by land, air and sea. The reason? A kitchen sink–sized chunk of interstellar material that my colleagues and I believe collided with the Earth at 100,000 miles per hour nearly a decade ago. After years of effort, we may have finally found pieces of this elusive object on the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, about a mile beneath the waves. The story began In April 2019,...

NASA has tested the functions of Lucy, the agency’s first spacecraft to study Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids, filled it with fuel, and is preparing to pack it into a capsule for launch Saturday, October 16, 2021. Named after characters in Greek mythology, these asteroids circle the Sun in two swarms, with one group leading ahead of Jupiter in its path, the other trailing behind it. Lucy will be the first spacecraft to visit these asteroids. By studying these asteroids up close, scientists hope to hone their theories on how our solar system’s planets formed 4.5 billion years ago and why they...

Earth has a new moon - or at least a 'quasi-moon', a new study has revealed. A quasi-moon is a space rock that circles the Earth, but is gravitationally bound by the sun. This quasi-moon, called 2023 FW13, was discovered by experts using the Pan-STARRS telescope at the top of the Haleakala volcano in Hawaii, and is one of a handful of known quasi-moons. Experts think the ancient cosmic companion has been in Earth's vicinity since 100 BC and will keep circling our planet for at least another 1,500 years, until AD 3700. Thankfully, neither 2023 FW13 or a similar...

Explanation: This asteroid has a moon. The robot spacecraft Galileo on route to Jupiter in 1993 encountered and photographed two asteroids during its long interplanetary voyage. The second minor planet it photographed, 243 Ida, was unexpectedly discovered to have a moon. The tiny moon, Dactyl, is only about 1.6 kilometers across and seen as a small dot on the right of the sharpened featured image. In contrast, the potato-shaped Ida is much larger, measuring about 60 kilometers long and 25 km wide. Dactyl is the first moon of an asteroid ever discovered -- now many asteroids are known to have...

Sorry, Jupiter. Astronomers have discovered 62 new moons orbiting the ringed planet Saturn. The satellite haul brings the planet's total number of moons to over 100 and also means the gas giant takes back the crown as the solar system's "moon king" from Jupiter. Prior to this discovery, Saturn had 83 moons recognized by the International Astronomical Union(opens in new tab), so the new batch brings the total number to an incredible 145. The discovery marks another milestone for Saturn, with the planet becoming the first world in the cosmos known to be orbited by more than 100 moons. The...

a grey, lumpy moon in front of the red surface of Mars Credit: Emirates Mars Mission The United Arab Emirates Space Agency (UAESA) has just produced the best images ever taken of Mars’ moon Deimos — and they suggest the tiny satellite isn’t what we thought it was. Mars’ moons: Mars has two moons. The larger of them, Phobos, is 14 miles wide and orbits the planet from a distance of just 3,700 miles, while the smaller one, Deimos, is only 9 miles in diameter and circles it from 14,580 miles away. “We expect to … advance our fundamental understanding...

It’s being called the New Year’s Comet, a fuzzy green ball named Comet Lovejoy that is cruising past Mother Earth as we speak and is scheduled to become visible to the naked eye starting midweek. The name Comet Lovejoy may ring a bell; one of its namesakes was last in Earth’s vicinity three years ago, when it survived a death plunge into the sun in 2011, then emerged to grow a new tail. That was C/2011 W3 (Lovejoy). The latest entry into our field of vision is the fifth comet discovery for amateur astronomy Terry Lovejoy of Australia, according to...

AstroForge, a startup with plans to mine asteroids, is getting ready to launch the first of its two missions on Friday, of which the main objective is to test the firm’s technique for refining platinum from a sample of asteroid-like material. The startup has placed a payload on SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, pre-packed with elements similar to those found in asteroids. Working in Earth’s orbit, the OrbAstro-built cubesat will attempt to vaporize and sort the materials into their elemental components. Sign Up for the Battery Metals Digest AstroForge says its vehicle Brokkr-1 aims to demonstrate the company’s refining capabilities in...

One of the most concerning things about the Chelyabinsk event has to do with the ease at which the asteroid evaded our detection systems in use at the time. On the same day the Chelyabinsk asteroid exploded over eastern Russia, NASA had been tracking... 2012 DA14, as it passed within just 17,200 miles from Earth. March 2023...chief scientist with NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, presented new findings on impact features at the Lunar and Planetary Science Conference at Johnson Space Center. Based on recent satellite data, Garvin thinks previously hidden features of ancient impact features could indicate they are much...

Nearly six years ago, a space object roughly the size of a football field baffled scientists as it zipped through our solar system. The irregular shape and motion of the object, dubbed ‘Oumuamua, led to one of the most controversial astronomical mysteries, with theories that ranged from asteroid to alien probe. But a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature offers another answer: ‘Oumuamua is a typical comet that expelled gas in an odd way as it traveled through our solar system. “We’ve gone through every weird, crazy, possible theory—ideas that stretch the imagination to match all of these observed...

A truck-sized asteroid will pass near Earth on Thursday (Jan 26) in one of the closest approaches to our planet ever recorded, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) said, emphasising that it poses no danger. Asteroid 2023 BU, which was recently discovered by an amateur astronomer, will zoom by the southern tip of South America at around 4.27pm PST (8.27am, Friday, Singapore time) on Thursday (Jan 26), according to NASA. It will pass just 3,600km from Earth's surface, much closer than many geostationary satellites orbiting the planet.

The near-Earth object, called 2023 EY, has been posted on NASA’s asteroid database and listed as one of the next five asteroid approaches. Scientists estimate it is about 54 feet wide. A near-Earth object is classified as any space object that can come within 30 million miles of Earth. This asteroid’s closest Earth approach is roughly 149,000 miles.

First detected on Feb. 27, the asteroid dubbed 2023 DW is estimated to measure about 165 feet (50 meters) in diameter, or roughly the length of an Olympic-size swimming pool. The asteroid is expected to make a very close approach to Earth on Feb. 14, 2046; as of March 8, the European Space Agency's Near-Earth Object Coordination Centre(opens in new tab) predicts a 1-in-625 chance of a direct impact, although those odds are being recalculated daily. "Often when new objects are first discovered, it takes several weeks of data to reduce the uncertainties and adequately predict their orbits years into...

This collage shows six planetary radar observations of 2011 AG5 a day after the asteroid made its close approach to Earth on Feb. 3. With dimensions comparable to the Empire State Building, 2011 AG5 is one of the most elongated asteroids to be observed by planetary radar to date. It looks like a whitish, long lumpy shape against darkness. Six radar views of asteroid 2011 AG5 after its close approach to Earth in early February 2023. NASA/JPL-Caltech When I think of asteroids in the abstract, I tend to imagine them as big roundish balls of rock dashing through space and...

One of the most elongated asteroids ever imaged by planetary radar was closely tracked by the agency’s Deep Space Network. This collage shows six planetary radar observations of 2011 AG5 a day after the asteroid made its close approach to Earth on Feb. 3. With dimensions comparable to the Empire State Building, 2011 AG5 is one of the most elongated asteroids to be observed by planetary radar to date. Credit: NASA/JPL-CaltechOn Feb. 3, an asteroid more than three times as long as it is wide safely flew past Earth at a distance of about 1.1 million miles (1.8 million kilometers,...

While the U.S. was busy celebrating the Super Bowl on Sunday night, Europeans had their own spectacle. Early Monday morning, a bright flash streaked across the skies over Western Europe as an asteroid discovered just hours earlier made its impact with Earth's atmosphere. The asteroid, dubbed Sar2667, was first detected on the evening of Feb. 12 by astronomer Krisztián Sárneczky in Hungary. He told Space.com that he found the asteroid during a routine near-Earth object hunt using a 2-foot telescope. "It was immediately obvious that it was an NEO, but it wasn't particularly fast across the sky," he said, "as...

Artist’s concept of NASA’s Lucy spacecraft at an asteroid. Credit: NASA NASA’s Lucy spacecraft will add another asteroid encounter to its 4-billion-mile journey. On November 1, 2023, Lucy will get a close-up view of a small main-belt asteroid to conduct an engineering test of the spacecraft’s innovative asteroid-tracking navigation system. The Lucy mission is already breaking records by planning to visit nine asteroids during its 12-year tour of the Jupiter Trojan asteroids, which orbit the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter. Originally, Lucy was not scheduled to get a close-up view of any asteroids until 2025, when it will...