Tag: Asteroid

DART's target is the binary, near-Earth asteroid system Didymos, composed of the roughly 780-metre diameter "Didymos" and the smaller, approximately 160-metre size "Dimorphos", which orbits Didymos.

Apart from 2005 RX3, the four asteroids which are headed toward Earth this week are 2020 PT4, 2022 QD1, 2022 QB37 and 2022 QJ50.

Asteroids are rocky fragments left over from the formation of the solar system about 4.6 billion years ago.

Washington: The first spacecraft that NASA sent to collect sample from an asteroid has now arrived at its destination, asteroid Bennu. The Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) spacecraft met Bennu on Monday after travelling through space for more than two years and over two billion kilometres, NASA said. The spacecraft executed a […]

Washington: NASA’s Dawn spacecraft has gone silent, ending an 11-year-old historic mission to explore the two largest bodies in the main asteroid belt, Vesta and Ceres, the US space agency said. Dawn missed scheduled communications sessions with NASA’s Deep Space Network on October 31 and November 1. After the flight team eliminated other possible causes […]

London: The asteroid that killed dinosaurs 66 million years ago, also led to the extinction of the first tree-dwelling birds, finds a study. The asteroid that crashed to Earth with a force one million times more than the largest atomic bomb decimated the planet’s forests as well as its canopies. With no more perches, the […]

Washington: Astronomers have discovered an unusual carbon-rich asteroid in the Kuiper Belt — the first of its kind to be confirmed in the cold outer reaches of the solar system. This object, designated 2004 EW95, likely formed in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and has been flung billions of kilometres from its origin […]

Washington: An intermediate-sized asteroid, categorised as a “potentially hazardous asteroid”, will make a close approach to earth on February 4, but has zero chances of colliding with our planet in over the next 100 years, NASA said in a statement. Discovered in January 2002, the asteroid 2002 AJ129 is somewhere between 0.3 miles (0.5 km) […]

Washington: A small asteroid will safely pass by Earth on Thursday at a distance of approximately 42,000 kilometres, just above the orbital altitude of communications satellites, NASA has said. The fly-by of the asteroid designated 2012 TC4 will give asteroid trackers around the world an opportunity to test their ability to operate as a coordinated […]

Washington: Using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, an international team of astronomers has found that an unusual object in the asteroid belt is, in fact, two asteroids orbiting each other that have comet-like features. These include a bright halo of material, called a coma, and a long tail of dust. The odd object, called 2006 VW139/288P, […]

Washington: As NASA’s asteroid-bound spacecraft OSIRIS-REx approaches Earth for its September 22 gravity assist, a ground-based telescope has captured images of the spacecraft. This is the first Earth-based view of OSIRIS-REx since its launch on September 8, 2016, NASA said on Friday. The images were taken on September 2, by the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory […]

Washington: An asteroid will safely pass about three times the distance of the Earth to the Moon Jan 26, NASA reported.

A huge asteroid named 2019 NJ2 with a diameter of nearly 2017 feet will move towards Earth today. According to the NASA’s CNEOS(Center For Near Earth Studies), asteroid 2019 NJ2, will reach its closes distance to Earth today at 7.53 pm (Standard Time). Reports claim that the asteroid 2019 NJ2 is currently moving at a speed […]

Washington: NASA has ruled that the pair of asteroids flying by Earth this weekend could pose a threat to our planet. “These asteroids have been well observed – once since 2000 and the other since 2010 – and their orbits are very well known,” said NASA’s Planetary Defence Officer Lindley Johnson. “Both of these asteroids […]

Washington: NASA’s first asteroid sampling spacecraft is now just one rehearsal away from grabbing a sample from asteroid Bennu’s surface. The OSIRIS-REx mission will conduct a final rehearsal of its touchdown sequence on August 11, practicing the sample collection activities one last time before touching down on Bennu in October, NASA said. This “Matchpoint” rehearsal […]