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The space agency estimates there are about 25,000 asteroids of at least 140m in diameter near Earth's orbit. While the odds of them crashing into our planet at any given time are minuscule, Congress directed Nasa to find 90 per cent of them by 2020. Scientists have found fewer than half. But for reasons it has not publicly explained, the administration has proposed delaying by two years, until 2028, the launch of an infrared space telescope meant to find those threatening asteroids and sharply cutting its budget for next year. About 500 times a year, researchers identify asteroids of at...

In a new study, researchers analyzed some of the tiny fragments of space rock that were left behind after the meteor exploded, known as meteorite dust. Normally, meteors produce a small amount of dust as they burn up, but the tiny grains are lost to scientists because they are either too small to find, scattered by the wind, fall into water or are contaminated by the environment. However, after the Chelyabinsk meteor exploded, a massive plume of dust hung in the atmosphere for more than four days before eventually raining down on Earth's surface, according to NASA. And luckily, layers...

A Compilation of Chelyabinsk Meteor Footage from February 15, 2013February 14, 2015 | David Snodgress

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - NASA chief Charles Bolden has advice on how to handle a large asteroid headed toward New York City: Pray. That's about all the United States - or anyone for that matter - could do at this point about unknown asteroids and meteors that may be on a collision course with Earth, Bolden told lawmakers at a U.S. House of Representatives Science Committee hearing on Tuesday. An asteroid estimated to be have been about 55 feet in diameter exploded on February 15 over Chelyabinsk, Russia, generating shock waves that shattered windows and damaged buildings. More than...

2021 SG passed us safely on Sept. 16, but at a relatively close distance -- astronomically speaking -- of around 153,000 miles (246,000 km). If it had entered Earth's atmosphere, it likely would have caused destruction, especially if it hit near a populated area. The Chelyabinsk meteor and asteroid 2021 SG point out a literal blind spot when it comes to watching for so-called near-Earth objects: the sun. As NASA solar system ambassador Eddie Irizarry and EarthSky editor-in-chief Deborah Byrd explain, both space rocks went undetected as they approached us because they came from the direction of the sun. NASA...

Thanks to the ubiquitousness of dashboard-mounted video cameras in Russia yet another bright object has been spotted lighting up the sky over Siberia, this time a “meteor-like object” seen on the evening of Saturday, Sept. 27.

Sunday is International Asteroid Day, commemorating the Earth's largest recorded asteroid impact while focusing on the real danger of asteroids that could collide with Earth. In 1908, a powerful asteroid struck the Podkamennaya Tunguska River area in a remote Siberian forest of Russia. Six years ago, an asteroid entered Earth's atmosphere over Chelyabinsk, Russia. It exploded in the air, releasing 20 to 30 times more energy than that of the first atomic bombs and generating brightness greater than the sun. It damaged more than 7,000 buildings and injured more than 1,000 people. The shock wave broke windows 58 miles away....

Of course, cosmic coincidences can and do happen. Last year, the close passage of asteroid 2012 DA14 was upstaged by the explosion of a 20-metre asteroid over the city of Chelyabinsk on the very same day. And though the two were conclusively proven to be unrelated, they did serve to raise general human awareness that, yes, large threatening rocks do indeed menace the Earth. And ironically, the aforementioned asteroid 2014 RC was about the same size as the Chelyabinsk asteroid, which snuck up on the Earth undetected from a sunward direction. But Ron Baalke, a software engineer at the Jet...

Almost nobody noticed this, but back in December a chunk of space rock slammed into the Earth's atmosphere at 32km/sec over the Bering sea. The aerodynamic forces tore it apart and it released energy equivalent to a 170 kiloton weapon. And almost nobody noticed. Find out more about the asteroid hazard and how you can help at the B612 Foundation. | 173 Kiloton Explosion Over Bering Sea Was Asteroid Breaking Up | Scott Manley | Published on Mar 19, 2019

...the Kola fireball had a 'disturbingly similar' path to asteroid 2014 UR116, which is due to pass by the moon in 2017. Spotted on April 19 last year, researchers used camera footage to help recreate its trajectory and hunt down any remaining fragments... This led researchers to the Annama meteorite, which is an ordinary H5 chondrite -- a group of space rocks with high strength that make up 31 per cent of meteorite falls. The computer model compared the orbit of Annama, a 1,100lb (500kg) rock, with the evolution of a dozen orbits of near-Earth asteroids... Vladimir Lipunov, a professor...

Originally, astronomers thought that the Chelyabinsk meteor came from a 1.24-mile-wide (2 kilometers) near-Earth asteroid called 1999 NC43. But a closer look at the asteroid's orbit and likely mineral composition, gained from spectroscopy, suggests few similarities between it and the Russian meteor. However, "the composition of [the] Chelyabinsk meteorite that was recovered after the event is similar to a common type of meteorite called LL chondrites," he added. "The near-Earth asteroid has a composition that is distinctly different from this." More generally, Reddy and his colleagues' work showed that it is difficult to make predictions about what particular asteroid could...

This is the moment an explosively bright orange flash briefly illuminated the sky above a remote region in central Russia. Locals compared the bright orange glow with what they would have expected from a nuclear explosion and many managed to capture the images in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region in the Urals in pictures and video. But despite the ample illustrations online, neither astrologist's or emergency services in the region so far have managed to come up with an explanation for exactly what is happening. Scientist Viktor Grokhovsky, who is a member of the meteorites committee of the Russian Academy of Sciences,...

Nov. 19, 2014 - 0:30 - Officials mum on origin of explosion caught on dash cam

An extraordinary bright orange flash has lit up the sky in Russia’s Sverdlovsk region in the Urals. While locals captured the massive ‘blast’ on numerous cameras, both scientists and emergency services still struggle to explain the unusual event. Dark evening skies in the town of Rezh in Sverdlovsk region near Russia's Ekaterinburg turned bright orange for some ten seconds on November 14, with the event being caught on several cameras by the locals. A driver filmed the massive flash with his dashcam, later posting the video on YouTube, with more people commenting they’ve seen it too. Teenagers in the town...

Scientists Have Underestimated The Likelihood Of City-Killing Asteroids Hitting Earth Reuters Irene Klotz, Reuters Apr. 28, 2014, 2:59 PM The chance of a city-killing asteroid striking Earth is higher than scientists previously believed, a non-profit group building an asteroid-hunting telescope said on Tuesday. A global network that listens for nuclear weapons detonations detected 26 asteroids that exploded in Earth's atmosphere from 2000 to 2013, data collected by the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization shows. The explosions include the Feb. 15, 2013, impact over Chelyabinsk, Russia, which left more than 1,000 people injured by flying glass and debris. "There is...

Chelyabinsk, a large city in western Russia, was best known for producing tractors and professional hockey players until the morning of February 15, 2013, when a 19-meter-wide meteor screamed through the sky and exploded with the force of 500 kilotons of TNT. The meteor generated a fireball many times brighter than the sun, so powerful it even caused sunburns. The shock wave blew out windows and knocked residents off of their feet, injuring more than 1,200. The object was the largest to strike Earth in more than a century... Asteroids that come within 28 million miles of our planet are...

Anomalous zones of Russia: Arkaim town Four thousand years ago the local dwellers suddenly left the town Arkaim located in the south of the present Chelyabinsk Region and burnt the empty settlement. The town had a circular structure coordinated with the stars order. Many believe in mystical characteristics of the area and link it with the legends of ancient Siberia and the Urals. Specialists of the monitoring station of anomalies` research in the Urals claim that the specialized national park-museum Arkaim is a vast anomalous zone. Arkaim was found by an archaeological expedition of the State University of Chelyabinsk in...

May 8 2006 12:01PM Chance of asteroids hitting earth very slim - Russian astronomers ST.PETERSBURG/MOSCOW. May 8 (Interfax) - The chance of a large asteroid hitting our planet in the next 100 years is "extremely slim," astronomer Sergei Smirnov of the Pulkovo Main Observatory told journalists. Smirnov dismissed as unfounded reports that a giant asteroid could strike the Earth in the summer of 2008 and said this is clear from experts' calculations. U.S. astronomers have lately been closely monitoring a large newly discovered asteroid, which they said has a very little chance of colliding with the earth. The odds of...

Pravda.RU:Top Stories:More in detail 15:33 2003-03-18Very Large Meteorite Fell Down in Siberia The falling of the meteorite is still mysterious. Scientists say that it might weigh 60 tons The night was rather dull in the north-east of the Russian Irkutsk region on September 25, 2002. All of a sudden, night turned into day. A very bright glow covered the sky, it was hard to look at it. Those people, who happened to be outside at 2 a.m., saw a ball of fire that was flying very fast across the sky. Weird rusting sounds could be heard. A few seconds...

PARIS, Oct 13: A Russian meteorite that crashed two weeks ago in Siberia, but whose existence is being played down by Russian authorities, is said to be "one of the great events of the century" by French space specialist Antonella Barucci. Miss Barucci, a meteorite specialist employed by the Paris Observatory said that the Russian metorite, which fell October 3 in a remote region of Siberia "could be the largest and most important meteorite to fall on earth since the last one that fell in 1908, also on Siberia." The new Siberian meteorite has also the added attraction, moreover, that...