Astronomy, features and articles | Educational Science

Mar 2, 2023

New Hubble footage shows exact moment a NASA spacecraft slammed into an asteroid 7 million miles from Earth

The famed Hubble Space Telescope tracked dramatic hour-by-hour changes in deep space caused by a NASA probe's deliberate asteroid crash. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) mission slammed into a small space rock called Dimorphos in late September 2022, aiming to test-drive a technique for deflecting an asteroid on a...

Mar 2, 2023

NASA confirms success of DART mission, proving humanity can deflect killer asteroids with rockets

Roughly five months after intentionally crashing a rocket into a distant asteroid, NASA has some good news: The mission was a smashing success, and similar methods could prevent Earth from being obliterated by planet-killing space rocks in the future, according to four new studies published in the journal Nature. I...

Mar 6, 2023

What's the smallest known asteroid? What about the largest?

Asteroids constantly zoom around our solar system and sometimes smash into planets, including Earth. As such, in the name of planetary defense NASA conducted a test, dubbed DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test), to deflect a space rock like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs (or the one Bruce Willis...

Mar 8, 2023

Newly discovered asteroid the size of a swimming pool has a 1-in-600 chance of colliding with Earth, NASA says

Update: On March 15, NASA and ESA updated their predictions, which now show the asteroid has a 1-in-1,584 chance to hit Earth in 2046. These odds will almost certainly drop to zero in the coming weeks, ESA officials added. A newly discovered asteroid may make a perilously close approach to...

Mar 15, 2023

Asteroid feared to hit Earth in 2046 will almost certainly miss, NASA says

After a brief flirtation with doom, the newly discovered asteroid that was given a 1-in-600 chance of slamming into Earth on Valentine's Day 2046 is now highly unlikely to hit our planet, NASA announced. The asteroid, which was first detected on Feb. 27 and named 2023 DW, measures about 165...

Mar 21, 2023

Key building block for life discovered on distant asteroid Ryugu — and it could explain how life on Earth began

For the first time, scientists have found one of the key building blocks for RNA on an asteroid in space. The discovery indicates that the blueprints for life may have been brought to Earth from beyond our planet, and that rudimentary forms of life could exist elsewhere in the solar...

Mar 21, 2023

Skyscraper-size asteroid will get closer to Earth than the moon on Saturday

An asteroid three times the size of the one that blew out windows in Chelyabinsk, Russia in 2013 will zip by Earth at half the distance of the moon on Saturday (March 25). Fortunately, the asteroid, known as 2023 DZ2, will make a clean pass by our planet, speeding by...

Mar 22, 2023

Extinction-level asteroid impacts could be far more common than we thought, controversial study suggests

Earth may have been pummeled by large space rocks more often than previously estimated, controversial new research suggests, raising the risk that a species-ending impact could come sooner than we think. The study, presented at the annual Lunar and Planetary Science Conference in The Woodlands, Texas last week, focused on...

Mar 24, 2023

Potentially hazardous asteroids: How dangerous are near-Earth objects?

Millions of rocks orbit within the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, but only some fly relatively close to Earth. NASA classifies asteroids that orbit within 30 million miles (50 million kilometers) of Earth as near-Earth objects (NEOs). But within this population of space rocks is a sub-group of particularly...

Apr 5, 2023

'Potentially hazardous' skyscraper-size asteroid will zip past Earth Thursday

A skyscraper-size asteroid cruising the cosmos at 35,000 mph (56,000 km/h) will make a relatively close approach to Earth Thursday (April 6), zooming past our planet at about 7.5 times the average distance between Earth and the moon, according to NASA. Fortunately, the meaty space rock will miss our planet...

Apr 26, 2023

'Potentially hazardous' asteroid as tall as the Eiffel Tower will zoom by Earth today

A potentially hazardous asteroid that spans the length of the Eiffel Tower will shoot past Earth today (April 26). But fear not, the enormous space rock will sail safely past our planet, according to NASA. The asteroid, known as 2006 HV5, reached its closest point to Earth at around 12:00...

May 4, 2023

How to watch the Eta Aquarid meteor shower — a burst of 'shooting stars' left by Halley's Comet — peak this weekend

The Eta Aquarid meteor shower will peak this weekend, and it could be a great show for skywatchers who are in the right place at the right time. The annual display of shooting stars (which are actually tiny meteors burning up in Earth's atmosphere) will peak overnight on May 5...

May 15, 2023

Rock that crashed through New Jersey home may be 4.6 billion-year-old chunk of Halley's Comet

A rock confirmed to be a meteorite crashed into a New Jersey home on Monday (May 8), damaging a bedroom but causing no injuries. No one was at Suzy Kop's home in Hopewell Township, New Jersey, when the space rock made its entrance, according to CBS News Philadelphia, which first...

May 17, 2023

James Webb telescope spots ancient water frozen in a near-Earth comet — and scientists want to collect it

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is probably best known for peering deep into the early cosmos, searching for the universe's oldest stars. But it's also making amazing discoveries right in our own cosmic backyard. For the first time, the powerful telescope has spotted a water-rich comet in the inner...

May 18, 2023

'Planet killer' asteroids pose no threat to Earth for at least 1,000 years — but smaller rocks could still be a problem

Rest easy: Earth probably won't be creamed by a killer asteroid in the next 1,000 years. New research accepted for publication in The Astronomical Journal and available on the preprint server arXiv.org finds that none of the kilometer-wide (0.6 mile) asteroids that travel near Earth are likely to hit the...