When asteroid 2019 OK suddenly appeared barreling toward Earth on July 25, 2019, Luisa Fernanda Zambrano-Marin and the team at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico jumped into action.

After getting an alert, the radar scientists zoned in on the asteroid,

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ESA’s Comet Interceptor mission to visit a pristine comet or other interstellar object just starting its journey into the inner Solar System has been ‘adopted’ this week; the study phase is complete and, following selection of the spacecraft prime contractor,

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More than 20 types of amino acids have been detected in samples Japan’s Hayabusa2 space probe brought to Earth from an asteroid in late 2020, an official said Monday.

The acids discovered are very important substances for living things and could hold clues to understanding the origins of life,

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Watching the skies for large asteroids that could pose a hazard to the Earth is a global endeavor. So, to test their operational readiness, the international planetary defense community will sometimes use a real asteroid’s close approach as a mock encounter with a “new”

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Because of their potential to deepen our understanding of the solar system and beyond, NASA this week extended the missions of eight of its spacecraft, including OSIRIS-REx-and Northern Arizona University planetary geologist Chris Haberle will be one of the scientists involved in the newly extended project.

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Currently, the only asteroid defense project to have truly gotten off the ground is the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission, an initiative developed by NASA and John Hopkins University.

China is planning a new initiative to combat the threat of a potential asteroid impact on Earth,

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NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has determined the size of the largest icy comet nucleus ever seen by astronomers. The estimated diameter is approximately 80 miles across, making it larger than the state of Rhode Island. The nucleus is about 50 times larger than found at the heart of most known comets.

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The study, in which the Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (UC3M) and the Universidad Estatal Paulista Julio de Mesquita Filho (Julio de Mesquita Filho Paulista State University) (UNESP) of Brazil are participating, analyses the surface and dynamics of Apophis, an asteroid that will pass close to Earth in 2029.

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Asteroids hold many clues about the formation and evolution of planets and their satellites. Understanding their history can, therefore, reveal much about our solar system. While observations made from a distance using electromagnetic waves and telescopes are useful, analyzing samples retrieved from asteroids can yield much more detail about their characteristics and how they may have formed.

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