Newfound lunar craters suggest that asteroids that smashed into the moon long ago were very different from the ones that now occupy the asteroid belt, researchers say.

Solving this asteroid mystery could yield answers regarding the habitability of the early Earth,

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The NEOWISE mission hunts for near-Earth objects (NEOs) using the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) spacecraft. Funded by NASA’s NEO Observations Program, the NEOWISE mission uses images taken by the spacecraft to look for asteroids and comets, providing a rich source of measurements of solar system objects at infrared wavelengths.

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A year since a probe called Philae made history by touching down on a comet, the team that pulled off the feat is plotting a different kind of landing. Next September, the European Space Agency will crash Philae’s mothership Rosetta into the icy dust ball,

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The five CubeSat concepts to be studied to accompany ESA’s proposed Asteroid Impact Mission into deep space have been selected.

The ideas being looked at include taking a close-up look at the composition of the asteroid surface, measuring the gravity field,

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Get ready for a man-made fireball. A object discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on Oct 3rd temporarily designated WT1190F is predicted to impact the Earth about 60 miles (100 km) of the southern coast of Sri Lanka around 6:20 Universal Time on November 13.

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Scientists observing asteroid 2015 TB145 with NASA’s Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, have determined that the celestial object is more than likely a dead comet that has shed its volatiles after numerous passes around the sun.

The belated comet has also been observed by optical and radar observatories around the world,

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Discovered by Pan-STARRS on 2015 October 10, this Apollo-type object probably measures 300-600 metres across and is in a short-period (3.07 yr) comet-like orbit tilted 40 deg to the ecliptic.  It is due to reach perihelion 0.29 au from the Sun on 2015 December 11.

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An object discovered on 3 October 2015, temporarily designated WT1190F by the observers, will enter the Earth’s atmosphere on 13 November. It was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey

The object is in Earth orbit, with a period of about three weeks.

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NASA scientists are tracking the upcoming Halloween flyby of asteroid 2015 TB145 with several optical observatories and the radar capabilities of the agency’s Deep Space Network at Goldstone, California. The asteroid will fly past Earth at a safe distance slightly farther than the moon’s orbit on Oct.

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Mass extinctions occurring over the past 260 million years were likely caused by comet and asteroid showers, scientists conclude in a new study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

For more than 30 years, scientists have argued about a controversial hypothesis relating to periodic mass extinctions and impact craters –

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