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In February of 2013, skywatchers around the world turned their attention toward asteroid 2012 DA14, a cosmic rock about 150 feet (50 meters) in diameter that was going to fly closer to Earth than the spacecraft that bring us satellite TV. Little did they realize as they prepared for the once-in-several-decades event that another bit of celestial debris was hurtling toward Earth, with a more direct heading. On Feb. 15, 2013, the Chelyabinsk meteor, a roughly 62-foot (19 meter)-diameter asteroid exploded over the city of Chelyabinsk, Russia, as it entered Earth's atmosphere at a shallow angle. The blast shattered windows...

An enormous asteroid roughly twice the size of the Empire State Building is currently hurtling towards Earth's orbit. NASA has been tracking this latest space rock, called 2010 RJ53, since September 2010. This comes days after it was announced that a slightly smaller asteroid will enter our atmosphere on Sunday. It spans roughly 2540ft (774m) and should fly past us on September 9. RJ53 circles between 58-139 million miles from the sun, and will whiz by Earth at a distance of more than two million miles. A serious asteroid impact remains one of the worst possible natural disasters as there...

“Fast Facts” About Star Systems Close to Earth Posted on Aug 3, 2021 in Astronomy, Astrophysics, Exoplanets, Science The closest stars to the Earth are also some of the best studied celestial objects. In Astrophysics, distance makes all the difference. The closer an object is, the more light we will be able to glean from it. Stars come in different types (masses, chemical compositions, ages), but the closest example of each type will be a critical object to study. In this article we review five fast facts about the closest systems to the Earth and what they mean for astrophysical...

*China can send mammoth machines into space which travel for years then deflect problematic rocks *Same devices have been criticised recently because one plummeted back to Earth in uncontrolled re-entry China’s space programme could one day save the world, with massive rockets travelling for years to defend the planet from huge asteroids capable of wiping out entire cities, according to a government-backed study. This saviour role is unexpected given these are the same machines seen as a threat by many, including the United States, just weeks ago; the main 20-tonne section from one such rocket fell back to Earth in...

Did you know that NASA is going to send a spacecraft on a suicide mission in an attempt to change the trajectory of a massive space rock? The good news is that the space rock that NASA will be crashing this spacecraft into is not on a collision course with Earth. It is only a test. But why has NASA suddenly become so concerned with figuring out how to defend the Earth from giant asteroids? Could it be possible that there is something heading toward Earth in the future that they haven’t told us about yet? According to NASA, there...

A comet unlike any other in recorded history is on a trajectory to zip through the inner solar system in less than a decade, but like most space rocks that make the news, it isn’t anything to lose sleep over. Comet 2014 UN271 was observed during a mission called the Dark Energy Survey back in 2014, but skywatchers didn’t realize that the data gathered was showing a comet until mid-June of this year. Pedro Bernardelli and Gary Bernstein were the two people who made this realization, giving Comet 2014 UN271 a name that rolls off the tongue a bit easier:...

Not a week goes by that I don't read one or two letters to the editor of our local newspaper decrying the supposed effects of man-made climate change. The fear is palpable, the proposals sincere, but the misunderstanding hurtful. Writing as a retired pastor, I would like to address this issue from a biblical perspective. Presently, a naturalistic worldview dominates public policy on climate change, both in Washington and in many blue states. Modern naturalism posits that the universe evolved through random physical processes. This hypothesis entails that our Earth is extremely fragile and that man, often viewed as a...

“A Perilous Journey” –Our Solar System Has Completed 20 Orbits of the Milky Way Posted on Jun 26, 2021 in Astronomy, Milky Way Galaxy, Science In 1999 astronomers focusing on a star at the center of the Milky Way, measured precisely how long it takes the sun to complete one orbit (a galactic year) of our home galaxy: 226 million years, bobbing our fraught journey through the disc of the Milky Way, drifting through ghostly spiral arms and the darkness of dense nebulae, keeping a constant 30,000 light years between Earth and the violent galactic core. The last time the...

Scientists at Cornell University and the American Museum of Natural History have identified 2,034 nearby star-systems—within the small cosmic distance of 326 light-years—that could find Earth merely by watching our pale blue dot cross our sun. That's 1,715 star-systems that could have spotted Earth since human civilization blossomed about 5,000 years ago, and 319 more star-systems that will be added over the next 5,000 years. Exoplanets around these nearby stars have a cosmic front-row seat to see if Earth holds life, the scientists said in research published June 23 in Nature. "From the exoplanets' point-of-view, we are the aliens," said...

Geologic activity on Earth appears to follow a 27.5-million-year cycle, giving the planet a 'pulse,' according to a new study published in the journal Geoscience Frontiers. "Many geologists believe that geological events are random over time. But our study provides statistical evidence for a common cycle, suggesting that these geologic events are correlated and not random," said Michael Rampino, a geologist and professor in New York University's Department of Biology, as well as the study's lead author.Over the past five decades, researchers have proposed cycles of major geological events—including volcanic activity and mass extinctions on land and sea—ranging from...

The faster growth under Indonesia's Banda Sea hasn't left the core lopsided. Gravity evenly distributes the new growth—iron crystals that form as the molten iron cools—to maintain a spherical inner core that grows in radius by an average of 1 millimeter per year. But the enhanced growth on one side suggests that something in Earth's outer core or mantle under Indonesia is removing heat from the inner core at a faster rate than on the opposite side, under Brazil. Quicker cooling on one side would accelerate iron crystallization and inner core growth on that side. This has implications for Earth's...

A peculiar ranch incident in New Mexico nearly 75 years ago has kept UFO enthusiasts intrigued at the possible presence of alien life on Earth until this very day.ROSWELL, N.M. — A peculiar ranch incident near Roswell, New Mexico nearly 75 years ago still intrigues UFO enthusiasts about the possible presence of extra-terrestrial life on Earth. Amid a violent summer thunderstorm in July 1947, a large flying object fell out of favor with the gods and crashed on a ranch about 75 miles northwest of the military town. The events to follow gave rise to Roswell as a tourist attraction...

A new analysis suggests Earth may have been a water world three to four billion years ago with a global ocean large enough to have submerged Mount Everest. Scientists at Harvard University examined our planet's ancient mantle and found that in ages past it was four times hotter due to radioactivity, and would therefore not be able to hold the current amount of water. 'We find that water storage capacity in a hot, early mantle may have been smaller than the amount of water Earth's mantle currently holds, so the additional water in the mantle today would have resided on...

Traces of Earth’s early magma ocean identified in Greenland rocks New research led by the University of Cambridge has found rare evidence – preserved in the chemistry of ancient rocks from Greenland - which tells of a time when Earth was almost entirely molten.It’s astonishing that we can even hold these rocks in our hands – let alone get so much detail about the early history of our planetHelen WilliamsThe study, published in the journal Science Advances, yields information on an important period in our planet’s formation, when a deep sea of incandescent magma stretched across Earth’s surface and extended...

A strange dent in Earth’s magnetic field doses orbiting craft with high levels of radiation. It's caused everything from periodic glitches to total mission failure. The European Space Agency’s Swarm satellites measure the strength of Earth’s magnetic field. In this image, cooler colors (blue) mean lower strength than warmer colors (pink). The large dark region is called the South Atlantic Anomaly Radiation is a colorless, tasteless, and odorless enemy to both humans and electronics alike. And, thanks to a quirk in Earth’s magnetic field, a region called the South Atlantic Anomaly (SAA) regularly exposes orbiting spacecraft to high levels of...

Although sunlight is more intense on Saturday, winter in the Northern Hemisphere is unaffected, due to the 23.5-degree tilt of Earth's axis. Being closer to the sun does not change the Earth's tilt, so the North Pole is still tilted away from the sun. Six months from now, on July 5, Earth will be at its farthest from the sun, known as its aphelion, meaning "far from the sun." At perihelion, Earth is about 91.5 million miles from the sun, and at aphelion, it is around 94.5 million miles away. Between perihelion and aphelion, there is about a 6.7% difference...

As if we didn’t have enough reasons to hate 2020, the United Nations just offered one more. On Wednesday, the U.N. and the World Meteorological organization released a report on the “state of the climate” and – surprise, surprise – it looks bleak. The year from hell is on course to be the third warmest on record, viruses are jumping out of nature to attack us, and the world has already warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius since pre-industrial times. “To put it simply, the state of the planet is broken,” said U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres, in a speech at Columbia University....

Earth Is a Whole Lot Closer to Our Galaxy's Supermassive Black Hole Than We Thought MICHELLE STARR 27 NOVEMBER 2020 It seems that Earth has been misplaced. According to a new map of the Milky Way galaxy, the Solar System's position isn't where we thought it was. Not only is it closer to the galactic centre - and the supermassive hole therein, Sagittarius A* - it's orbiting at a faster clip. It's nothing to be concerned about; we're not actually moving closer to Sgr A*, and we're in no danger of being slurped up. Rather, our map of the Milky...

Obama's 'memorable songs' seem more like a list work-shopped by his publicity team, curated to fit the former president's 'I’m whatever you want me to be' image.Former President Barack Obama shared a playlist on Twitter Monday “featuring some memorable songs from my administration.” At the request of my boss, I listened to all of them.Music has always played an important role in my life—and that was especially true during my presidency. In honor of my book hitting shelves tomorrow, I put together this playlist featuring some memorable songs from my administration. Hope you enjoy it. pic.twitter.com/xWiNQiZzN0— Barack Obama (@BarackObama) November...

Why is Earth pulsating every 26 seconds, and why canÂ’t scientists explain it after 60 years? This is an enigma wrapped in a periodically predictable mystery motion. It could be a harmonic phenomenon, a regular seismic chirp caused by the sunÂ’s energy, or a beacon drawing scientists to its source to begin a treasure hunt. âž¡ The world is weird. We'll show you how it works. In the early 1960s, a geologist named Jack Oliver first documented the pulse, also known as a "microseism," according to Discover. Oliver, who worked at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory at the time, heard...