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+16 +1
Whose job is it to prevent Armageddon?
NASA is preparing to slam a spacecraft into an asteroid at 16,000 miles per hour, in a pioneering attempt to nudge it off course. But the yearlong mission scheduled to begin on Nov. 24 is raising an existential question for scientists and security experts: whose job is it to defend the planet against a possibly life-ending space rock if one was headed our way?
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An asteroid barely missed Earth last week, and no one knew it was coming
An asteroid about the size of a refrigerator shot past Earth last week, and astronomers didn't know the object existed until hours after it was gone. It was a close call (from a cosmic perspective); the space rock's trajectory on Oct. 24 carried it over Antarctica within 1,800 miles (3,000 kilometers) of Earth — closer than some satellites — making it the third-closest asteroid to approach the planet without actually hitting it, CNET reported.
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How the Sun affects asteroids in our neighborhood
Asteroids embody the story of our solar system's beginning. Jupiter's Trojan asteroids, which orbit the Sun on the same path as the gas giant, are no exception. The Trojans are thought to be left over from the objects that eventually formed our planets, and studying them might offer clues about how the solar system came to be.
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NASA launches robotic archaeologist Lucy on ambitious mission to Trojan asteroids
NASA's newest asteroid probe, named Lucy, blasted off from Kennedy Space Center here in Florida to embark on a 12-year mission to study two different clusters of asteroids around Jupiter known as Trojans. These swarms represent the final unexplored regions of asteroids in the solar system. Lucy, acting as a robotic archaeologist, will help to answer questions about how the giant planets formed.
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Could an asteroid impact push the Moon closer to us?
The Moon is very big, and any small object hitting it would have very little effect on its motion around the Earth, because the Moon’s own momentum would overwhelm that of the impact. Most asteroid collisions would result in large craters and little else; even the largest asteroid known, Ceres, wouldn’t budge the Moon.
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Lucy in the sky: Spacecraft will visit record 8 asteroids
Attention asteroid aficionados: NASA is set to launch a series of spacecraft to visit and even bash some of the solar system's most enticing space rocks. The robotic trailblazer named Lucy is up first, blasting off this weekend on a 12-year cruise to swarms of asteroids out near Jupiter—unexplored time capsules from the dawn of the solar system. And yes, there will be diamonds in the sky with Lucy, on one of its science instruments, as well as lyrics from other Beatles' songs.
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What can we do with a captured asteroid?
There's gold in them thar asteroids! Literally — asteroids have more than enough gold, plus other metals, to provide a few lifetimes' worth of fortunes. But there are plenty of other reasons asteroids are valuable. So how do we get these metals from these faraway asteroids? Perhaps the best way is to bring the space rocks to Earth.
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A NASA simulation revealed that 6 months' warning isn't enough to stop an asteroid from hitting Earth. We'd need 5 to 10 years.
Last month, experts from NASA and other space agencies around the world faced a troubling hypothetical scenario: A mysterious asteroid had just been discovered 35 million miles away, and it was heading for Earth. The space rock was expected to hit in six months.
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In a NASA simulation of an asteroid impact, scientists concluded they couldn't stop a space rock from decimating Europe
Space agencies participated in a weeklong NASA exercise in which they tried — and failed — to stop a fictitious asteroid from hitting Europe.
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Meteorite that landed in Botswana tracked to its birthplace in the asteroid belt
A small asteroid barreled through the sky and burned up over the Kalahari Desert of Botswana in the summer of 2018 and now, scientists suspect that the space rock originated from Vesta, the second largest asteroid in the solar system.
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A massive asteroid is set to fly close to Earth – here’s how to watch
Earlier this year, NASA announced that a massive asteroid is set to have a close encounter with Earth, passing within two million kilometers (in space terms, that’s closer than it sounds, earning it the title of Potentially Hazardous Asteroid). Moving at just under 77,000 miles per hour, and estimated to measure around a kilometre in diameter, Asteroid 2001 FO32 will be the largest and fastest of its kind to pass so close to our planet this year.
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Largest Asteroid To Fly Past Earth In 2021 'Potentially Hazardous'
Mark your calendars, guys, because 2021's largest known asteroid will be passing Earth on 21 March and it's said to be 'potentially hazardous'. The space rock - which is known as 2001 FO32 - is one of numerous near-Earth objects (NEOs) that orbit the sun, just as our planet does.
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Japan Has Opened Hayabusa2’s Capsule, Confirming It Contains Samples From Asteroid Ryugu
The Japanese space agency (JAXA) says it has begun opening the capsule returned to Earth by its historic Hayabusa2 mission – and has confirmed asteroid samples are inside. Today, Monday, December 14, the capsule was opened for the first time since it touched down in the Australian outback on December 6 following its journey through space.
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Asteroids Crashing Into Dead Stars are Helping Explain Where the Universe's Missing Lithium Went
What happened to all the lithium? The question has stumped astronomers for decades. While cosmologists have successfully predicted the abundance of the other light elements from the Big Bang, lithium has always come up short. Now, a team of astronomers may have found the reason: lithium-rich asteroids are smashing into white dwarves.
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Japan’s Journey to an Asteroid Ends With a Hunt in Australia’s Outback
The Hayabusa2 mission cements Japan’s role in exploring the solar system, but finding its asteroid cargo presents one last challenge.
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Asteroid shines ‘ten times brighter than moon’
The flash was approximately 10 times brighter than a full moon
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Japan spacecraft carrying asteroid soil samples nears home
A Japanese spacecraft is nearing Earth after a yearlong journey home from a distant asteroid with soil samples and data that could provide clues to the origins of the solar system, a space agency official said Friday. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft left the asteroid Ryugu, about 300 million kilometers (180 million miles) from Earth, a year ago and is expected to reach Earth and drop a capsule containing the precious samples in southern Australia on Dec. 6.
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NASA Discovers a Rare Metal Asteroid That’s Worth $10,000,000,000,000,000,000
Forget water on the moon, NASA has now struck gold. NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has discovered a rare, heavy and immensely valuable asteroid called “16 Psyche” in the Solar System’s main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.
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Nasa spacecraft that picked up pieces of asteroid is leaking them into space as it returns home
A Nasa spacecraft that picked up pieces of an asteroid is leaking them into asteroid on its way home, the space agency has said. The probe picked up such as substantial sample that a rock is wedged against the container door, which means they are falling out back into space.
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NASA’s OSIRIS-REx grabs rocks from asteroid in historic mission
A NASA spacecraft touched down on the rugged surface of the Bennu asteroid on Tuesday, grabbing a sample of rocks dating back to the birth of the solar system to bring home.
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