Pieces of Asteroid That Killed Dinosaurs May Have Been Found

GREENBELT, Md. — Scientists studying the North Dakota site, a time capsule of that cataclysmic day 66 million years ago, said that intact slivers of the impactor that killed the dinosaurs had been discovered. Scientists estimate that the object that struck the Yucatán Peninsula in what is today Mexico was about six miles wide, but …

How a Tiny Asteroid Strike Could Rescue Earthlings from City-Killing Space

Movies imagining an asteroid or comet catastrophically colliding with Earth always have a key scene: a lone astronomer notices a errant chunk of space shooting toward us, a lone astronomer notices the errant chunk of space shooting toward us, causing panic and growing excitement. leads to a feeling of existential fear. as the researcher tells …

How a Tiny Asteroid Strike Could Rescue Earthlings from City-Killing Space

Movies imagining an asteroid or comet catastrophically colliding with Earth always have a key scene: a lone astronomer notices a errant chunk of space shooting toward us, a lone astronomer notices the errant chunk of space shooting toward us, causing panic and growing excitement. leads to a feeling of existential fear. as the researcher tells …

First Quadruple Asteroid: Astronomers Detect a 3-Piece Space Rock

We already knew that Asteroid 130 Elektra was special. Astronomers have discovered that it has two moons before, making it a rare triple asteroid system. Now a third moon may have been found, making it even rarer – the first known quadruple asteroid in the solar system. Electra was first discovered in 1873 while orbiting …

Astronomers Find A New Trojan Asteroid Sharing Earth’s Orbit

There seemed to be no Trojan asteroids on Earth either, until astronomers found one in 2010 at the L4 Lagrange point, 60 degrees ahead of Earth. Subsequent searches were futile until Pan-Starrs, an automated sky survey in Hawaii, uncovered the 2020 XL5, an intriguing object that appears to be trapped around L4. However, initial observations …

NASA’s DART Mission Punches a Killer Asteroid to Save Humanity

Because Dimorphos is such a small space rock, DART will have to hit hard once the asteroid system reaches its closest point to Earth during its orbit around the sun, about 6.8 million miles away. This is a complex orbital choreography that will improve DART’s collision path with Dimorphos, with a precise launch time from …

How a Nuclear Bomb Could Save Earth from a Hidden Asteroid

One day, astronomers may detect an asteroid months away from a disastrous rendezvous with Earth. Our only chance of surviving at such a late stage would be to try using a nuclear explosive to destroy it. But would it work? Unlike some of the melodramatic Hollywood blockbusters of the 1990s, real-life scientists are largely uninterested …

Deflecting an Asteroid Before It Hits Earth Could Take Multiple Hits

There’s probably a large space rock out there with the Earth in the crosshairs. Scientists have actually identified a candidate – Bennu, which has little chance of hitting our planet in 2182. But whether it’s Bennu or another asteroid, the question will be how to avoid a highly unwelcome cosmic encounter. For nearly 20 years, …

NASA Says An Asteroid Will Have a Close Brush With Earth. But it is not

The probability of an asteroid the size of the Empire State Building hitting the Earth is very slim. Do not worry. You’ll be dead long before this is even possible. So are your children. Probably all your grandchildren too. There’s a 1 in 1750 chance, NASA scientists said at a press conference Wednesday. asteroid named …

2 Red Objects Found in the Asteroid Belt. they shouldn’t be

The finding, if true, holds for planetary migration in the early solar system, particularly beautiful model, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all move outward, and Jupiter a little inward, for a few hundred million years. This would disturb the organically charged asteroids left over from the formation of planets and send them pinging around the solar …