Paul Chodas and Alan Chamberlin

February 13, 2017

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory’s Center for Near-Earth Object Studies (CNEOS) has created the CNEOS website at http://cneos.jpl.nasa.gov to replace the legacy Near-Earth Object Program website at http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov. The CNEOS website provides the same near-Earth object (NEO) data as on the legacy site,

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A NASA spacecraft begins its search Thursday for an enigmatic class of near-Earth objects known as Earth-Trojan asteroids. OSIRIS-REx, currently on a two-year outbound journey to the asteroid Bennu, will spend almost two weeks searching for evidence of these small bodies.

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An international project, led by Spain’s National Research Council, (CSIC) provides information on the effects a projectile impact would have on an asteroid. The aim of the project is to work out how an asteroid might be deflected so as not to collide with the Earth.

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We have been receiving a number of calls about asteroid 2016 WF9, which has been reported in some of the tabloid press as being on a collision course with the Earth.  This is another classic example of immature reporting by journalists who should know better.

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A mission to smash a spacecraft into an asteroid moon to alter its trajectory, a possible dry-run for an exercise in saving the Earth from Armageddon, has run into a cash crunch.

The proposed joint European-US mission, which sounds like it could form the plot for a sci-fi Hollywood blockbuster,

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Whilst best known for its surveys of the stars and mapping the Milky Way in three dimensions, ESA’s Gaia has many more strings to its bow. Among them, its contribution to our understanding of the asteroids that litter the Solar System.

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Scientists have found traces of cosmic dust lying on the rooftops of buildings in Paris, Oslo, and Berlin – and it’s the first time researchers have confirmed the discovery of these tiny particles in urban environments.

Cosmic dust is the name for small amounts of matter in space,

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66 million years ago, the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs started the ascent of the mammals, ultimately resulting in humankind’s reign on Earth. Climate scientists now reconstructed how tiny droplets of sulfuric acid formed high up in the air after the well-known impact of a large asteroid and blocking the sunlight for several years,

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Careful sleuthing through decade-old images has enabled ESA’s asteroid team to decide that a newly discovered space rock poses little threat of hitting Earth any time soon.

Spotting a previously unknown asteroid for the first time always raises the big question: is there a risk it will impact Earth?

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On Monday morning, 9 January, Earth barely escaped being struck by a newly-discovered asteroid dubbed 2017 AG13. The asteroid, belonging to the Aten group of asteroids between 11 and 34 meters in diameter, was spotted by scientists at the University of Arizona-based Catalina Sky Survey just two days before the close flyby,

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