Engineers and scientists gathered around a screen in an operations room at the Naval Research Laboratory in Washington, D.C., eager to lay their eyes on the first data from NASA’s STEREO spacecraft. It was January 2007, and the twin STEREO satellites –

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About 66 million years ago, a meteorite hit the Earth of the Yucatan Peninsula in what is now Mexico. This event triggered a mass extinction that eradicated approximately 75 percent of all species and ended the era of dinosaurs.

Like Prof.

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JAXA’s (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency’s) Hayabusa2 mission is on track to return samples from its target asteroid, 162173 Ryugu, a C-type near-Earth asteroid (NEA). The past month has seen the successful deployment of two rovers and a lander. The mission focus is now on the successful retrieval and return of a surface sample.

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From the BBC.

Some of the biggest names in science are pleading for a deal on Brexit to avoid damaging British and European research.

A letter to Theresa May and Jean-Claude-Juncker has been signed by 29 Nobel Laureates and six winners of the prestigious Fields medal.

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Hayabusa-2, Japan’s asteroid-orbiting probe, has put another miniature lander on the surface of Ryugu.

The box-shaped lander, Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or MASCOT, was designed by a team of engineers from Germany and France.

Engineers at the German Aerospace Center,

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The hypothetical, massive outer Solar System body Planet X is still proving elusive, but the hunt for it has yielded up a different find: a tiny dwarf planet, roughly 2.5 times Pluto’s distance at the time it was found.

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The first-ever mission to demonstrate an asteroid deflection technique for planetary defense has moved into the final design and assembly phase, following NASA’s approval on Aug. 16.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), being designed, built and managed by the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel,

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Asteroids deemed potentially hazardous by officials at the US’ National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) are set to swing past Earth this week, starting on Tuesday.

The first, 2016 NFB23, will fly past Earth Tuesday at roughly 11:38 p.m.

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There is just over two months to go until asteroid 2015 TB145 approaches Earth once again, just as it did in 2015 around the night of Halloween, an occasion which astronomers did not pass up to study its characteristics. This dark object measures between 625 and 700 metres,

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Understanding the origin and time evolution of near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) is an issue of scientific interest and practical importance because they are potentially hazardous to the Earth. However, when and how these NEAs were formed and what they suffered during their lifetime remain enigmas.

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