Jay TateA meteorite was found in Botswana’s Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) that is a fragment of asteroid 2018 LA. This small asteroid was discovered in space by the University of Arizona’s Catalina Sky Survey on June 2, 2018, eight hours before hitting Earth. The asteroid burst through the upper atmosphere and resulted in a meteor fireball.
…
Jay TateBased on a new study of how near-Earth asteroid Phaethon reflects light at different angles, astronomers think that its surface may reflect less light than previously thought. This is an exciting mystery for the recently approved DESTINY+ mission to investigate when it flies past Phaethon.
The way an object reflects light depends not only on its albedo (the percentage of light it reflects) but also on the illumination angle.
…
Jay TateJust recently, a small asteroid lit up the sky over Botswana – having been discovered mere hours before it hit the Earth. Near-Earth objects (NEOs) like asteroids were the focus of a four-week conference at the Munich Institute for Astro and Particle Physics (MIAPP) in Garching.
Dr. Detlef Koschny,
…
Jay TateA fireball lit up the sky above the city of Lipetsk in western Russia last week. This week, videos of the exploding meteor emerged and small meteorite fragments were found on the ground.
NASA and its scientists are part of an international effort to identify and track potentially dangerous near Earth objects,
…
Jay TateA Japanese probe has reached an asteroid 300 million kilometres away to collect information about the birth of the solar system and the origin of life after a more than three-year voyage through deep space.
The Hayabusa2 probe successfully settled into an observation position 20 kilometres (12 miles) above the Ryugu asteroid,
…
Jay TatePlanning for humankind’s first mission to a binary asteroid system has entered its next engineering phase. ESA’s proposed Hera mission would also be Europe’s contribution to an ambitious planetary defence experiment.
Named for the Greek goddess of marriage, Hera would fly to the Didymos pair of Near-Earth asteroids: the 780 m-diameter mountain-sized main body is orbited by a 160 m moon,
…
Jay TateThe federal government wants to be better prepared for a possible asteroid impact.
A new interagency report offers plans for improving the government’s ability to detect, predict, plan for and respond to a near-Earth object impact.
“The National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy and Action Plan” outlines opportunities for improvements to NASA’s NEO detection,
…
Jay TateTwo years ago, NASA dismissed and mocked an amateur’s criticisms of its asteroids database. Now Nathan Myhrvold is back, and his papers have passed peer review.
Thousands of asteroids are passing through Earth’s neighborhood all the time. Although the odds of a direct hit on the planet any time soon are slim,
…
Jay TateAbout 66 million years ago, an asteroid smashed into the Earth triggering a mass extinction that ended the reign of the dinosaurs and snuffed out 75 percent of life.
While the asteroid killed off species, new research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found that the crater it left behind was home to sea life mere years after impact,
…
Jay TateOnce every month, on average, somewhere on Earth a fireball appears out of nowhere and for mere seconds, casts a blinding flash across the sky before it blows up in a thunderous explosion. It happened last Saturday over southern Africa, where a small space rock disintegrated in the night sky and –
…
