Earth’s closest ever recorded fly-by: Asteroid the size of a CAR flew within 1,830 miles of our planet this weekend and NASA didn’t see it until AFTER it had happened Researchers have dubbed the 6–18 feet in diameter space rock ‘2020 QG’ It was spotted by the Palomar Observatory in California late on Saturday evening … Read more
NASA has started work on a spaceship that will be sent to explore a metal-rich asteroid called Psyche that could be worth more than $10,000 quadrillion. There are so many precious metals buried within the asteroid that it could make every single person on Earth a billionaire if it were to be returned to the planet. … Read more
An asteroid that hit the Earth 66 million years ago ‘had to be responsible’ for the demise of the dinosaurs, according to a new study into the effects of the impact. Researchers from Imperial College London created mathematical models of the impact volcanic activity and a large asteroid would have on dinosaur habitats. The space … Read more
Asteroids colliding with the Earth four billion years ago created the building blocks of life on our planet and possibly even on ancient Mars, a new study claims. Researchers from Tohoku University in Japan recreated the conditions present in seabed craters made by the space rocks crashing into the young Earth. The team say these … Read more
Skyscraper-sized asteroid travelling at 11,000mph will zip past Earth at a distance of 3.1 million miles this weekend The asteroid has been called 163348 (2002 NN4) and was first spotted in 2002 It will make its closest approach to the Earth at 04:20 BST on Saturday 6 June The 1,870ft space rock is more than 400ft … Read more
Bizarre ‘asteroid’ with a TAIL of gas spotted orbiting the Sun at the same distance as Jupiter turns out to be a comet ‘in disguise’ The asteroid was first spotted in 2019 and the tail was confirmed in April 2020 2019 LD2 is letting off gas which is trailing behind the space rock like a … Read more
Rock samples taken from under the Chicxulub crater left by the dinosaur-killing asteroid 66 million years ago could hold the key to the origin of life on Earth. A team of researchers found that the impact of the city-sized space rock produced a network of warm waterways under the crater, which is in the Yucatán Peninsula … Read more
The asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs around 66 million years ago crashed into Earth at ‘the deadliest possible angle’, researchers have concluded. The giant impacter struck what is today Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula at around 60 degrees — maximising the production of climate-altering greenhouse gases. The global disaster caused by the space rock — which was … Read more
Letting off steam: Astronomers spot a new kind of asteroid with a comet-like tail orbiting the sun at the same distance as Jupiter The asteroid was first spotted in 2019 and the tail was confirmed in April 2020 2019 LD2 is letting off gas which is trailing behind the space rock like a comet tail … Read more
Japan’s Hayabusa2 spacecraft captures pictures of asteroid Ryugu in stunning detail after touching down on its surface The shots were taken on February 21, 2019, after months of study from orbit Researchers have used the image to interpret some of the asteroid’s history At one point, it must have passed close to the Sun, reddening some of … Read more