NASA and the Psyche team declined interview requests until an independent review of the mission delay has been completed. Agency officials will make a decision about next steps based on that review in the coming months, said Lori Glaze, head of NASA’s planetary science division, at last month’s press conference. But WIRED spoke with other … Read more
The Sun’s glare is the main reason telescopes tend to look outwards from Earth, away from the center of our Solar System. New research reveals that for telescopic surveys prepared to peer in the other direction, there’s lots to be found. In particular, recent surveys are revealing near-Earth objects or NEOs, including asteroids we’ve never … Read more
A recently discovered star, now designated S4716, is traveling at the mind-boggling speed of 5,000 miles (8,000 km) per second around the black hole at the center of our galaxy, the Milky Way, Space.com reported. The vast expanse of our universe means that astronomers always find something they have never seen before. Earlier this week, … Read more
The DART mission will be the first to test asteroid deflection through kinetic impactor technology. Drawing: NASA In order to protect the Earth, some sacrifices must be made. NASA’s DART spacecraft is currently on its way to a binary asteroid system known as Didymos and will essentially crash into one tiny asteroid to test out … Read more
If you wanted to do a forensic study of the Solar System, you might head for the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. That’s where you can find ancient rocks from the Solar System’s early days. Out there in the cold vacuum of space, far from the Sun, asteroids are largely untouched by space … Read more
Gigantic asteroids have smashed into the Earth before—RIP dinosaurs—and if we’re not watching out for all those errant space rocks, they could crash into our world again, with devastating consequences. That’s why Ed Lu and Danica Remy of the Asteroid Institute started a new project to track as many of them as possible. Lu, a … Read more
NEW DELHI: India has commissioned a unique liquid-mirror telescope atop a mountain in the Himalayan range in Uttarakhand that will keep a watch on the overhead sky to identify transient or variable objects such space debris, asteroids, supernovae and gravitational lenses. It is the country’s first and the Asia’s largest liquid-mirror telescope. The telescope will … Read more
People alive today could witness astronauts landing on an asteroid for the first time, according to scientists. Researchers analyzed NASA’s budget since the 1960s to gauge how likely a mission to the asteroid belt is within the next century. They showed that, based on their estimates, the first crewed mission to an asteroid could take … Read more
People alive today could witness astronauts landing on an asteroid for the first time, according to scientists. Researchers analyzed NASA’s budget since the 1960s to gauge how likely a mission to the asteroid belt is within the next century. They showed that, based on their estimates, the first crewed mission to an asteroid could take … Read more
Researchers have found over 1,700 asteroid trails in archived Hubble data from the last 20 years. While many of the asteroids are previously known, more than 1,000 are not. What good are another 1,000 asteroids? Like all asteroids, they could hold valuable clues to the Solar System’s history. As time passes and more and more … Read more