A 3U CubeSat Could Collect Data During an Asteroid Flyby
One of the great things about CubeSat designs is that they constrain the engineers who design them. Constraints are a great way to develop novel solutions to problems that might otherwise be ignored without them. As CubeSats become increasingly popular, more and more researchers are looking at how to get them to do more with…
‘Spectacular’ asteroid blazes over Siberia just hours after it was detected
A small asteroid lit up the skies over northern Siberia today (Dec. 4) after burning up in Earth's atmosphere in a "spectacular" (yet harmless) fireball.Astronomers spotted the space rock, measuring 28 inches (70 centimeters) in diameter, in the early hours on Wednesday local time, just hours before the space rock entered the atmosphere."Thanks to observations…
Could We Use An Asteroid to Shield Astronauts On Their Way...
Radiation is a primary concern for long-duration human spaceflight, such as the planned trips to Mars, which are the stated goal of organizations such as NASA and SpaceX. Shielding is the standard way to protect astronauts from radiation during those flights. However, shielding is heavy and, therefore, expensive when it is launched off the Earth.…
Could Primordial Black Holes Be Hiding in Plain Sight?
Are Primordial Black Holes real? They could’ve formed in the unusual physics that dominated the Universe shortly after the Big Bang. The idea dates back to the 1960s, but so far, the lack of evidence makes them purely hypothetical. If they do exist, a new paper suggests they may be hiding in places so unlikely…
Massive, ‘potentially hazardous’ asteroid due to make closest-ever approach to Earth...
A "potentially hazardous" asteroid the size of a football stadium will zoom past our planet in the early hours tomorrow morning (Dec. 4) — and you can watch it live.The gigantic space rock, which is traveling at roughly 27,500 miles per hour (44,300 kilometers per hour), will reach a minimum distance of 1.37 million miles…
How Much Are Asteroids Really Worth?
Popular media love talking about asteroid mining using big numbers. Many articles talk about a mission to Psyche, the largest metallic asteroid in the asteroid belt, as visiting a body worth $10000000000000000000, assumedly because their authors like hitting the “0” key on their keyboards a lot. But how realistic is that valuation? And what does…
‘Fireball’ meteor discovered hours before exploding above Niagara Falls was the...
An asteroid that fell to Earth in 2022 and exploded in a stunning green fireball above Canada was the smallest space rock ever properly measured, a new study suggests. The diminutive asteroid, which was only discovered a few hours before it blew up, was around the same size as an average domestic cat.In the early…
Samples of ‘alien’ asteroid Ryugu are crawling with life — from...
A rock retrieved from a near-Earth asteroid is crawling with microbial life, scientists have discovered. But the bacteria on its surface almost certainly came from Earth.The sample is part of a 0.2-ounce (5.4 grams) chunk of rock that Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft scraped from the surface of the asteroid Ryugu and brought back to our planet…
Scientists Reveal a New Way to Study Near-Earth Asteroids
On November 18th, 2022, shortly before midnight, the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) in Arizona and other observatories worldwide detected a small object (now designated 2022 WJ1) heading toward Earth. For the next three hours, the CSS and the Southern Ontario Meteor Network (SOMN) at the University of Western Ontario monitored the object before it entered…
Scientists trace origin of Earth’s mysterious ‘minimoon’ days before it escapes...
Earth's latest "minimoon" may be a tiny chunk of our planet's larger, permanent satellite that was ejected by a violent collision millions of years ago, a new study hints. However, we are unlikely to find out for certain because this temporary companion, which has been orbiting our planet for the last two months, is about…
