Latest Near-Earth objects Stories
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online The findings from the 6th European Conference on Space Debris were released during a press briefing at the ESA's European Space Operations Center (ESOC) in Darmstadt, Germany. The conference included over 350 worldwide participants representing all the major national space agencies, industry, governments, academia and research institutes. “There is a wide and strong expert consensus on the pressing need to act now to begin...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Hundreds of experts from all over the world will be meeting at Europe's largest-ever space debris forum next week to discuss the latest findings on the growing problem of space junk. Space debris not only poses problems to other satellites and spacecraft in orbit but it is also hazardous to astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS). Scientists believe there could be around 29,000 objects larger than 4 inches, 670,000...
Brett Smith for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online Besides ruining the appearance of a landscape, litterbugs contribute to unsanitary and unsafe conditions, resulting in many communities issuing steep fines for anyone caught tossing their trash where it doesn’t belong. A recent event involving a Russian satellite suggests that we may have to take our approach to litterbugs and apply it to outer space as well. According to a report from the Colorado-based Analytical Graphics, Inc....
[Watch Video: Surface Features of Asteroid Toutatis Revealed By Radar] Lawrence LeBlond for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online An asteroid by the name of 4179 Toutatis passed close enough to Earth last week that China’s Chang’e-2 probe was able to fly by the object, named for the Celtic deity Teutates by Christian Pollas in 1989, and snap some photos. The asteroid reportedly passed within 2 miles of the probe before swinging back out in Jupiter’s neighborhood. China’s...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, 4179 Toutatis, will be making a close approach of Earth this week, just in time to give "world ending" theorists something to talk about. The asteroid has an estimated diameter of over 3 miles, which is about half the size of the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs. Some believe that the Mayan calendar predicts the world will be ending this year on December 21 due to an asteroid striking...
John P. Millis, Ph.D. for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online In late 2011 the National Research Council released a report stating that the amount of “space junk” orbiting the Earth had reached a tipping point. Since the 1960s, as the United States and others began launching satellites and rockets into space, the region known as Low Earth Orbit (LEO) has become increasingly crowded. The problem has become so significant that, when the Space Shuttle fleet was still operating, NASA...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online The European Space Agency (ESA) reports that it has rediscovered an asteroid that was once lost through the agency's space hazards program. Potentially Hazardous Asteroid 2008SE85 was first discovered back in September 2008 by the Catalina Sky Survey, and was observed by a few observatories the following month. However, no one since then has observed the object, and predictions for its current position had become so inaccurate that...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com – Your Universe Online In relative terms, the Earth is about to escape another asteroid impact on Thursday by the hair on its chin. Although it's not like the 14-story sized asteroid is going to be nearing so close to Earth that you will be getting a prime view of in it your backyard, it will be about 7.5 times the Moon's distance from our planet. The asteroid, which is between 625 and 1,400 feet across, is close enough to Earth to be classified a...
Lee Rannals for redOrbit.com A huge asteroid the size of a city block will be skimming by Earth on Thursday night at 8:00 eastern time. The giant space rock is about 1,650-feet wide and is big enough to qualify as a potentially hazardous asteroid. However, experts stress there is no chance of a collision, and it will be passing Earth at a safe 3 million miles away. Astronomers in Australia discovered the asteroid 2012 LZ1 on Sunday night, and found that the object is going to offer...
Scientists have discovered that a potentially hazardous asteroid might collide with Earth in 2182. The scientists used two mathematical models in order to determine the chance of impact. "The total impact probability of asteroid '(101955) 1999 RQ36' can be estimated in 0.00092 "“approximately one-in-a-thousand chance-, but what is most surprising is that over half of this chance (0.00054) corresponds to 2182," explains to SINC MarÃa Eugenia Sansaturio, co-author of the study...
