Latest Near-Earth asteroids Stories
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory Like many of his colleagues at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., Shyam Bhaskaran is working a lot with asteroids these days. And also like many of his colleagues, the deep space navigator devotes a great deal of time to crafting, and contemplating, computer-generated 3-D models of these intriguing nomads of the solar system. But while many of his coworkers are calculating asteroids' past, present and future locations in the cosmos,...
University of Arizona Scientists at the University of Arizona welcome President Barack Obama's NASA budget proposal, rolled out today, and specifically its focus on gaining a better understanding of asteroids that could potentially harm Earth. The UA has a unique depth of capabilities and expertise that can help inform such missions and ensure their success. The UA is operating the most prolific ground-based system for identifying near-Earth asteroids, and it is tasked by NASA with...
[Watch Video: 2012 DA14 Trajectory] | [ Watch the Video: Asteroid 2012 DA14 To Whiz Past Earth Safely ] Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online You know the feeling of standing by a highway as an 18-wheeler rushes by, and you feel the rush of air from that vehicle slinging your hair into your face? Well, if it wasn't for the vacuum in space, then we would hypothetically be getting that rush as asteroid 2012 DA14 makes its nail-biting, close-approach of Earth this weekend....
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online NASA will be launching a new mission in 2016 to help estimate what kind of impact an asteroid would make if it struck Earth. The OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security, and Regolith Explorer) mission will travel to a potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA), and make measurements of the Yarkovsky effect. This effect is a push on an asteroid that happens when it is warmed up by the sun and then...
redOrbit Staff & Wire Reports - Your Universe Online A 140 meter diameter asteroid experts once believed had a one in 500 chance of striking the earth no longer presents a significant impact risk, NASA officials have confirmed. Previously, orbital uncertainties meant there could have been a 0.2-percent chance that asteroid 2011 AG5 would collide with the planet in February 2040, prompting the scientific community -- including David Tholen, Richard Wainscoat and Marco Micheli of the...
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory A collage shows nine radar images of near-Earth asteroid 2007 PA8 that were obtained between Oct. 31 and Nov. 13, 2012, with data collected by NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif. On Nov. 5 at 8:42 a.m. PST (11:42 a.m. EST/16:42 UTC), the object came about 4 million miles (6.5 million kilometers) from Earth, or 17 times the distance between Earth and the moon. The images of 2007 PA8 reveal possible craters,...
NASA Statement Scientists working with NASA's 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, Calif., have obtained several radar images depicting near-Earth asteroid 2007 PA8. The images were generated from data collected at Goldstone on Oct. 28, 29 and 30, 2012. The asteroid's distance from Earth on Oct. 28 was 6.5 million miles (10 million kilometers). The asteroid's distance to Earth was 5.6 million miles (9 million kilometers) on Oct. 30. The perspective in the...
Watch the Video: NASA Announces Asteroid Naming Contest Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online NASA is opening up an opportunity for students to help name an asteroid the space agency will be gathering samples from and returning back to Earth. The Origins-Spectral Interpretation-Resource Identification-Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission is scheduled to launch in 2016. During the mission, a spacecraft will land on the near-earth asteroid currently called 1999...
WASHINGTON, June 15, 2012 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Researchers anticipate that asteroid 2011 AG5, discovered in January 2011, will fly safely past and not impact Earth in 2040. (Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20081007/38461LOGO) Current findings and analysis data were reported at a May 29 workshop at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., attended by scientists and engineers from around the world. Discussions focused on observations of potentially...
The work of a University of Tennessee, Knoxville, professor has helped reveal a rare orbital shift and the density of an asteroid that will pass close to Earth. Josh Emery, assistant professor of earth and planetary sciences, and the team of the NASA asteroid sample return mission called OSIRIS-REx have measured the weight and orbit of 1999 RQ36. They have found the asteroid has a low density and its orbit has drifted roughly 100 miles in the last twelve years. This deviation is...
