Earth May Have Captured a 1960s-Era Rocket Booster Earth has captured a tiny object from its orbit around the Sun and will keep it as a temporary satellite for a few months before it escapes back to a solar orbit. But the object is likely not an asteroid; it’s probably the Centaur upper stage rocket […]

School Bus-Size Asteroid to Safely Zoom Past Earth A small near-Earth asteroid (or NEA) will briefly visit Earth’s neighborhood on Thursday, Sept. 24, zooming past at a distance of about 13,000 miles (22,000 kilometers) above our planet’s surface. The asteroid will make its close approach below the ring of geostationary satellites orbiting about 22,000 miles […]

Tiny Asteroid Buzzes by Earth – the Closest Flyby on Record Near Earth Asteroids, or NEAs, pass by our home planet all the time. But an SUV-size asteroid set the record this past weekend for coming closer to Earth than any other known NEA: It passed 1,830 miles (2,950 kilometers) above the southern Indian Ocean […]

Small Asteroid to Safely Fly by Earth A relatively small asteroid, about 4 to 8 meters in diameter, will fly safely past Earth just before 3pm today, Apr. 28 (Eastern U.S. time). NASA is tracking the object, but orbit calculations ruled out any chance that the near-Earth object could pose a threat to our planet. […]

Asteroid 1998 OR2 to Safely Fly Past Earth This Week A large near-Earth asteroid will safely pass by our planet on Wednesday morning, providing astronomers with an exceptional opportunity to study the 2-kilometer-wide (1.5-mile-wide) object in great detail. NASA CNEOS Go to Source

Tiny Object Discovered in Distant Orbit Around the Earth A small object, presumed to be a tiny asteroid, has been discovered in a distant orbit about the Earth, a highly unusual circumstance, since asteroids normally orbit the Sun. The new “mini-moon” has been given the asteroid designation 2020 CD3, but in view of its strange […]

Newly Discovered Comet Is Likely Interstellar Visitor A newly discovered comet has excited the astronomical community this week because it appears to have originated from outside the solar system. The object – designated C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) – was discovered on Aug. 30, 2019, by Gennady Borisov at the MARGO observatory in Nauchnij, Crimea. The official […]

Small Asteroid of Concern will Safely Pass Next Month The Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) has determined with new analysis by its Sentry impact monitoring system that a small asteroid whose uncertain position was of concern will pass by Earth at a very safe distance in September. The new analysis of the asteroid, called […]

Largest Close Approaching Asteroid in a Century Passes by Earth On the evening of Thursday, July 24, a football-field-sized asteroid passed close to the Earth with very little warning. The asteroid, designated 2019 OK, approached Earth at about 44,000 miles (71,000 kilometers) above the surface, one fifth the distance to the Moon. Other known asteroids […]

NASA Tracked Small Asteroid Before It Broke up in Atmosphere When a lightning detector on a NOAA weather satellite detected something that wasn’t lightning last Saturday, a scientist at the Center for Near Earth Object Studies at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, did some detective work. NASA CNEOS Go to Source

Scientists Planning Now for Asteroid Flyby a Decade Away On April 13, 2029, a speck of light will streak across the sky, getting brighter and faster. At one point it will travel more than the width of the full Moon within a minute and it will get as bright as the stars in the Little […]

NASA, FEMA, International Partners Plan Asteroid Impact Exercise While headlines routinely report on “close shaves” and “near-misses” when near-Earth objects (NEOs) such as asteroids or comets pass relatively close to Earth, the real work of preparing for the possibility of a NEO impact with Earth goes on mostly out of the public eye. NASA CNEOS […]

Holiday Asteroid Imaged with NASA Radar The December 2018 close approach by the large, near-Earth asteroid 2003 SD220 has provided astronomers an outstanding opportunity to obtain detailed radar images of the surface and shape of the object and to improve the understanding of its orbit. NASA CNEOS Go to Source

See a Passing Comet This Sunday On Sunday, Dec. 16, the comet known as 46P/Wirtanen will make one of the 10 closest comet flybys of Earth in 70 years, and you may even be able to see it without a telescope. NASA CNEOS Go to Source

Planetary Defense: The Bennu Experiment On Dec. 3, after traveling billions of kilometers from Earth, NASA’s OSIRIS-REx spacecraft reached its target, Bennu, and kicked off a nearly two-year, up-close investigation of the asteroid. It will inspect nearly every square inch of this ancient clump of rubble left over from the formation of our solar system. […]

A Tiny Asteroid Will Pass Very Close to Earth on Saturday A very small asteroid discovered on Nov. 29 is on a path which will bring it very close to Earth on the evening of Dec. 1, but there is no chance that the asteroid could impact our planet. Only about 3 meters (15 feet) […]

NASA Learns More About Interstellar Visitor ‘Oumuamua In November 2017, scientists pointed NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope toward the object known as ‘Oumuamua – the first known interstellar object to visit our solar system. The infrared Spitzer was one of many telescopes pointed at ‘Oumuamua in the weeks after its discovery that October. NASA CNEOS Go […]

NASA’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies Enters Third Decade. On March 11, 1998, asteroid astronomers around the world received an ominous message: new observational data on the recently discovered asteroid 1997 XF11 suggested there was a chance that the half-mile-wide (nearly one kilometer) object could hit Earth in 2028. Powered by WPeMatico

Using observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and ground-based observatories, an international team of scientists has confirmed ‘Oumuamua (oh-MOO-ah-MOO-ah), the first known interstellar object to travel through our solar system, got an unexpected boost in speed and shift in trajectory as it passed through the inner solar system last year. Powered by WPeMatico

A new multiagency report outlines how the U.S. could become better prepared for near-Earth objects — asteroids and comets whose orbits come within 30 million miles of Earth — otherwise known as NEOs. While no known NEOs currently pose significant risks of impact, the report is a key step to addressing a nationwide response to […]