A NASA spacecraft under construction for launch in 2016 to retrieve samples from asteroid Bennu could benefit from an extra load of fuel, allowing an extended stay at the asteroid or a return to Earth a year early.

The $1 billion OSIRIS-REx mission is scheduled for launch from Cape Canaveral on Sept.

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You may have seen the headlines in the past week about Asteroid 2004 BL86, which will pass by our planet in less than 24 hours. Speeding by at almost 35,000 miles per hour, it will pass Earth at a distance of just 745,000 miles (about three times the distance from here to the Moon). 

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Researchers in Antarctica have discovered what they believe is the remnants of a meteorite impact site.

It was spotted last month by a team of German scientists during their stay at Belgium’s Princess Elizabeth station in East Antarctica.

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A chance sighting of fractured ice looking like icebergs in what is a flat ice shelf during an aerial survey of Antarctica has led scientists to conclude that it could be the impact site of a massive meteorite.

The “crater”

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Asteroid (357439) 2004 BL86 is a 650-meters wide potentially hazardous asteroid (PHA).  On 26 Jan. 2015, at 16:20 UT, it will make a close approach to the Earth, reaching a minimum distance of 1.1 million km (3.1 lunar distances). There is no possibility of a collision,

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A definitive geological timeline shows that a series of massive volcanic explosions 66 million years ago spewed enormous amounts of climate-altering gases into the atmosphere immediately before and during the extinction event that claimed Earth’s non-avian dinosaurs, according to new research from Princeton University.

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The extinction of the dinosaurs 66 million years ago is thought to have paved the way for mammals to dominate, but a new study shows that many mammals died off alongside the dinosaurs.

Metatherian mammals–the extinct relatives of living marsupials (“mammals with pouches”,

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ESA and national disaster response offices recently rehearsed how to react if a threatening space rock is ever discovered to be on a collision course with Earth.

Last month, experts from ESA’s Space Situational Awareness (SSA) programme and Europe’s national disaster response organisations met for a two-day exercise on what to do if an asteroid is ever found to be heading our way.

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Some recent press reports have suggested that an asteroid designated 2014 UR116, found on October 27, 2014, at the MASTER-II observatory in Kislovodsk, Russia, represents an impact threat to the Earth. While this approximately 400-meter sized asteroid has a three year orbital period around the sun and returns to the Earth’s neighborhood periodically,

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NASA and space agencies across the globe are opening up new possibilities for space exploration with missions to comets, asteroids, and other celestial bodies.

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