Asteroids

Latest in Asteroids

an illustration of an asteroid

World’s largest digital camera spots massive asteroid

By Laura Baisas

Dark lines of discolored dust on slopes of Martian mountain

On Mars, meteorites can cause miles-long dust slides

An artist's impression of Japan’s Hayabusa2 space mission touching down on the surface of the asteroid 1998 KY26. New observations with ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) have revealed that 1998 KY26 is just 11 m wide, almost three times smaller than previously thought, and is spinning once every 5 minutes, which is much faster than expected. The image above shows an updated size comparison between the asteroid and spacecraft.

Space Telescope

Japanese spacecraft eyes tricky asteroid landing

A scanning electron microscope image of a micrometeorite impact crater in a particle of asteroid Bennu material.

Some asteroids are more ‘colorful’ than others. Here’s why.

These images, showing ejecta around the impacted near-Earth asteroids, were taken during the approach (with Didymos to the upper left) and departure (Didymos to the upper right) of DART's companion spacecraft, LICIACube, which flew past a few minutes after the impact and imaged the aftermath. The ejecta field consists of an asymmetric cone of dust that exhibits streamers and filaments, as well as over a hundred meter-sized boulders that were ejected in preferred directions.

Crashing into an asteroid creates chaotic space boulders

By Laura Baisas

Artist illustration of an asteroid in space

Space Telescope

Asteroid 2024 YR4 might smash into the moon

Scanning electron micrograph of the number 15 grain of sample plate C0105-042 from Ryugu, in which djerfisherite was discovered.

Deep space asteroid sample contains unexpected ingredient

ESA's Flyeye telescope at first light test outside

Space Telescope

Bug-eyed telescope ready to find Earth-smashing asteroids

close up of asteroid Donaldjohanson

NASA snaps detailed photos of ‘strikingly complicated’ asteroid

A collage of three images showing the black expanse of space. Two-thirds of the collage is taken up by the black background sprinkled with small, blurry galaxies in orange, blue, and white. There are two images in a column at the right side of the collage. On the right side of the main image, not far from the top, a very faint dot is outlined with a white square. At the right, there are two zoomed in views of this area. The top box is labeled NIRCam and shows a fuzzy dot at the center of the inset. The bottom box is labeled MIRI and shows a fuzzy pinkish dot.

Space Telescope

JWST snaps first image of asteroid that threatened Earth

Artist illustration of asteroid in space

Agencies plan for near-Earth asteroid’s close encounter in 2032

A top-down view of the OSIRIS-REx Touch-and-Go-Sample-Acquisition-Mechanism (TAGSAM) head with the lid removed, revealing the remainder of the asteroid sample inside. The picture was taken using manual high-resolution precision photography and a semi-automated focus stacking procedure. The result is an image that can be zoomed in on to show extreme detail of the sample. The remaining sample material includes dust and rocks up to about 0.4 inch in size.

Scientists find traces of life’s building blocks in historic asteroid samples

An artistic representation of an active centaur like Chiron. The different colors in the coma indicate varying compositions of gas, ice, and dust.

An ‘oddball’ asteroid-comet hybrid dates back 4.6 billion years

By Laura Baisas

Still from Armageddon (1998).

What Hollywood gets wrong—and surprisingly right—about saving the world from killer asteroids

By Robin Andrews

The Winchcombe meteorite sits on display at the Natural History Museum on May 13, 2021 in London, England. The meteorite is a rare type, the first to fall in 30 years.

When a meteor smashes into your driveway

By Robin Andrews

Z Machine operating at Sandia National Laboratories

Could nukes deflect an asteroid? ‘X-ray scissors’ offer scientists clues.

Illustration of the cases where one impulse Δv = 10−1 m s−1 from a small asteroid impact has been applied to Apophis.

Astrophysicist predicts (slightly) higher chance for major asteroid impact in 2029

Martian meteorite

Just 5 impacts on Mars sent hundreds of meteorites to Earth

A rare visitor, a Mandarin Duck, showed up in Central Park, New York City in 2018.

Why are there so many birds?

By Lauren Leffer

NASA asteroid concept

How often do asteroids come near Earth?

By Briley Lewis