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Asteroid Buzzes Earth Highlighting Cosmic Blind SpotBy Robert Roy Britt Senior Science Writer 3-21-2002 An asteroid large enough to have flattened a city buzzed Earth earlier this month and was not seen until after if flew harmlessly by. The space rock approached Earth in the glare of the Sun, a blind spot that made it impossible to see during the day or night from any terrestrial vantage point. The event illustrates the potential of a surprise hit by an asteroid, astronomers said. The object, now named 2002 EM7, was probably between 40 and 80 meters (130-260 feet) in diameter, said...

A newly discovered asteroid larger than a skyscraper will wiz past the Earth on Halloween, making a dangerously close approach to the planet. The asteroid, officially named 2015 TB145, was just discovered on Oct. 10, 2015, and is expected to make its close approach to the Earth at the end of the month.Some have already given the asteroid the nickname of "Spooky" due to the fact that it's closest approach to Earth is going to occur on Halloween. Fortunately, the asteroid will miss the Earth, but it will still make an uncomfortably close approach of 302,885 miles. To put this...

Come 2022, scientists will attempt to save all of humanity from an asteroid. Calm down, it's just a trial run. The joint US-European AIDA—that's Asteroid Deflection and Assessment—mission intends to crash a probe into a 525-foot-wide asteroid known as Didymoon to see if the impact will change its orbital path. The egg-shaped asteroid is actually part of a binary system and orbits its larger partner, Didymos, every 12 hours, per Phys.org. NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) probe will crash into Didymoon at a speed of roughly 13,420mph, while ESA's Asteroid Impact Mission (AIM) will study the effects so researchers...

A recent diamond discovery and technological advancements in outer space have exposed potential new metal and gemstone sources for the jewellery industry.Geologists have reportedly discovered another type of diamond within the lava of the Tolbachik volcano, located on the Kamchatka Peninsula in Russia.According to multiple media reports, the Russian Ministry of Science released a statement that read: “The solidified lava of the Tolbachik eruption [which occurred in 2012–13] carries within it a new and never-before-seen type of diamond ... According to the Russian geologists, these unique diamonds are not formed in the magmatic melt, but are created by volcanic gases...

On July 25, 2015, the near-Earth asteroid 1999 JD6 made its closest pass of Earth in at least over a century, coming within 4.5 million miles of our planet (7.2 million kilometers, or about 19 times the distance between Earth and the moon) and traveling at a relative velocity of 45,410 mph (20.3 km/s). As the 1.2-mile (2 km) asteroid zipped by, NASA aimed two of its largest radio telescopes at it, bouncing radar waves off its surface to measure its size, shape, and rotation. ...1999 JD6 is what’s known as a “contact binary,” a peanut-shaped world that’s likely the...

An asteroid worth a potential £3.5 trillion ($5.4 trillion) is due to pass by Earth on Sunday, and you can watch it live from 11pm UK time (6.30pm ET). Asteroid 2011 UW-158's fly-by will be streamed live on the internet from an observatory in the Canary Islands. The space rock has attracted the attention of asteroid mining company Planetary Resources, because it is thought to have a 100 million ton core of platinum that the company might one day want to exploit. Asteroid 2011 UW-158 will pass within 1.5 million miles (2.4 million km) from Earth on Sunday - 30...

NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission is still gasping along, but at least one space blogger suggests that its cancellation is all but inevitable. In the meantime, Space News just on Tuesday reported that the space agency has decided that the ARM must actually capture a boulder and take it to a retrograde lunar orbit to be considered a success. This metric was actually in doubt, with some NASA managers suggesting that as long as an unmanned probe, propelled by a solar selection propulsion engine, rendezvoused with an asteroid and then returned, even without anything resembling a rock, it would be a...

Scientists and spacefliers will be focusing attention on near-Earth objects when the first-ever Asteroid Day plays out on Tuesday — not so much to raise money, but to raise awareness about the potential threat from above and what to do about it. That last part is the hard part, says Tom Jones, a planetary scientist and former NASA astronaut who's an adviser for Asteroid Day. He told NBC News that the biggest consciousness-raiser hit us two years ago, in the form of a nuclear-scale meteor blast that shook the Russian city of Chelyabinsk. "That was a crystallizing event for people...

Illustration Of A Planetoid Crashing Into Earth In 2013, a 60-foot-wide meteor exploded over Russia, and no one saw it coming. The Chelyabinsk impactor was relatively small by interplanetary standards, but the blast injured about 1,500 people and damaged 7,000 buildings. If a larger rock were headed for Earth, how would we defend ourselves? The short answer is, scientists aren’t really sure, but one solution sounds a lot like the plot from a 1998 Michael Bay movie: just nuke ‘em. In hopes of averting a space rock calamity, The New York Times reports that NASA has just sealed a deal...

It may sound like a science fiction movie, but in a small conference room at the Goddard Space Flight Center, a tight-knit group of top NASA scientists is coming up with new ways to protect our planet from killer asteroids. The idea is to repurpose and build on technologies being developed for other space missions. How big is the threat from asteroids? Well, Jason Kessler, NASA's director of the Grand Challenge, says that as of Wednesday morning asteroid hunters around the world have identified and are tracking 12,706 Near Earth Objects (NEOs) -- or asteroids - that could come close...

A COLOSSAL asteroid hurtling through space is feared to be one of the biggest EVER to threaten a collision with Earth. The gigantic missile thought to measure almost a mile across will brush closer than previous monsters which have sparked a global panic. Worried astronomers warned 1999 FN53, which is an eighth of the size of Mount Everest, will skim the Earth in TWO DAYS. A collision would be nothing short of catastrophic triggering mass destruction, earthquakes and global extinction. The monster is more than TEN TIMES bigger than other meteorites currently visible on NASA’s Near Earth Object radar. It...

Around 3 a.m. (CDT) tomorrow morning April 21, a 50-foot-wide asteroid will hurdle just 0.2 lunar distances or 45,600 miles over your bed. The Mt. Lemmon Survey, based in Tucson, Arizona, snagged the space rock Saturday. 2015 HD1 is about as big as a full grown T-rex through not nearly as scary, since it will safely miss Earth … but not by much.

“While this approximately 400-meter sized asteroid has a three-year orbital period around the sun and returns to the Earth’s neighborhood periodically, it does not represent a threat because its orbital path does not pass sufficiently close to the Earth’s orbit … Any statements about risk for impact of discovered asteroids and comets should be verified by scientists and the media by accessing NASA’s Near Earth Object (NEO) program web site.”

Scientists have calculated that 2014 UR116 asteroid will fly in dangerous proximity to Earth every three years. If it collides with the planet the energy of the explosion could be a thousand times greater than the impact of the Chelyabinsk meteorite. Vladimir Lipunov, a leading scientist on the team which discovered the asteroid this October, says the scientists now know its orbit and its period which is 3 years, but they cannot say precisely when the asteroid will approach the Earth. “We should track it constantly. Because if we have a single mistake, there will be a catastrophe. The consequences...

...the Kola fireball had a 'disturbingly similar' path to asteroid 2014 UR116, which is due to pass by the moon in 2017. Spotted on April 19 last year, researchers used camera footage to help recreate its trajectory and hunt down any remaining fragments... This led researchers to the Annama meteorite, which is an ordinary H5 chondrite -- a group of space rocks with high strength that make up 31 per cent of meteorite falls. The computer model compared the orbit of Annama, a 1,100lb (500kg) rock, with the evolution of a dozen orbits of near-Earth asteroids... Vladimir Lipunov, a professor...

A 400 kilometre-wide impact zone from a huge meteorite that broke in two moments before it slammed into the Earth has been found in Central Australia. The crater from the impact millions of years ago has long disappeared. But a team of geophysicists has found the twin scars of the impacts – the largest impact zone ever found on Earth – hidden deep in the earth’s crust. Lead researcher Dr Andrew Glikson from the ANU School of Archaeology and Anthropology said the impact zone was discovered during drilling as part of geothermal research, in an area near the borders of...

Asteroid 2004 BL86, which passed closest to Earth today at a distance of 750,000 miles (1.2 million km), has a companion moon. Scientists working with NASA’s 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of the asteroid which show the tiny object in orbit about the main body. ... 2004 BL86 measures about 1,100 feet (325 meters) across while its moon is approximately 230 feet (70 meters) across. The asteroid made its closest approach today (Jan. 26th) at 10:19 a.m. (CST), however it will peak in brightness this evening around 10 p.m. (4:00...

NASA is saying amateur astronomers with small telescopes and strong binoculars may be able to see the asteroid, although stormy conditions in the Northeast will limit night-time viewing there. Here's how to try to view the asteroid. Editor's note: These times are Eastern Standard Time so adjust them three hours earlier for optimal Pacific Standard Time viewing.]

The human race is ready to begin harvesting the resources of space both for their use in space and to increase the wealth and prosperity of the entire world. Promotional DSI Video

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A newly discovered asteroid will pass by Earth this weekend. At closest approach Sunday, the 60-foot rock will pass a safe 25,000 miles over New Zealand. That’s about one-tenth the distance between here and the moon. It’s also beyond the orbit of our highest communication and weather satellites.