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Astronomers initially thought the object was an asteroid when they spotted it in early October, and named it Asteroid 2015 TB145. But using the US space agency's Infrared Telescope Facility (IRTF) on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, experts "have determined that the celestial object is more than likely a dead comet that has shed its volatiles after numerous passes around the sun," NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said in a statement late Friday. ... The space rock has already grabbed attention with its unusually high speed and big size, about as large as a football stadium at 2,000 feet (600 meters) in diameter....

Elizabeth Palermo September 15, 2015An artist's depiction of the dual meteor strike. (Don Dixon/Erik Sturkell/University of Gothenburg) It's not altogether uncommon to hear about double rainbows, but what about a double meteor strike? It's a rare event, but researchers in Sweden recently found evidence that two meteors smacked into Earth at the same time, about 458 million years ago. Researchers from the University of Gothenburg uncovered two craters in the county of Jämtland in central Sweden. The meteors that formed the craters landed just a few miles from each other at the same moment, according to Erik Sturkell, a professor...

On Monday, Jupiter took a massive hit from a meteor, which was spotted by amateur astronomers based in the US—and if previous evidence is anything to go by, it could have saved Earth from a massive collision in the process. Dan Peterson of Racine, Wisconsin, was gazing at Jupiter on Monday when he saw a bright, white flash on the surface of the planet. When he posted his observation online, another astrophotographer, George Hall, discovered he'd unknowingly captured the massive explosion on video. Turns out it was probably a meteor striking the surface of the planet—and you can watch the...

Without warning, a mystery object struck Jupiter on July 19, 2009, leaving a dark bruise the size of the Pacific Ocean. The spot first caught the eye of an amateur astronomer in Australia, and soon, observatories around the world, including NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, were zeroing in on the unexpected blemish. Astronomers had witnessed this kind of cosmic event before. Similar scars had been left behind during the course of a week in July 1994, when more than 20 pieces of Comet P/Shoemaker-Levy 9 (SL9) plunged into Jupiter’s atmosphere. The 2009 impact occurred during the same week, 15 years later....

Amateur sightings prompt call for a network of backyard astronomers.On August 20, for the third time in about a year, amateur astronomers spotted a fireball above Jupiter's atmosphere. The discovery suggests the planet gets walloped more often than previously thought, say astronomers, some of whom are calling for a global "volunteer army" of backyard Jupiter watchers. The recent flash follows on the heels of July 2009 and June 2010 fireballs over the gas giant planet. (See "Bright Fireball Slams Into Jupiter" [June 2010] and "Jupiter Impact Creates Huge New Spot" [July 2009].) Astronomers speculate that the August 20 flash was...

Crater patterns on Vesta and Ceres could help pinpoint when Jupiter began to form during the evolution of the early Solar System. A study modelling the cratering history of the largest two objects in the asteroid belt, which are believed to be among the oldest in the Solar System, indicates that the type and distribution of craters would show marked changes at different stages of Jupiter’s development. Results will be presented by Dr Diego Turrini at the European Planetary Science Congress in Potsdam, Germany, on Monday 14 September. The study, carried out by scientists at the Italian National Institute for...

Hubble has trained its new camera on the atmospheric disturbance on Jupiter believed to have been caused by a comet or asteroid impact. The telescope used the Wide Field Camera 3 fitted on the recent shuttle servicing mission to capture ultra-sharp visible-light images of the scar. The dark spot near the gas giant's southern pole was noticed first by an amateur Australian astronomer.

PASADENA, California — A large comet or asteroid has slammed into Jupiter, creating an impact site the size of Earth, pictures by an Australian amateur astronomer show. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory confirmed the discovery using its large infrared telescope at the summit of Mauna Kea in Hawaii, said computer programer Anthony Wesley, 44, who discovered the impact zone while stargazing at home. News of Wesley's find on a backyard 14.5-inch reflecting telescope has stunned the astronomy world, with scientists saying the impact will last only days more. Wesley said it took him 30 minutes to realize a dark spot rotating...

Without Jupiter acting as a "cosmic vacuum cleaner" sucking up these dangerous objects, there would be so many catastrophic impacts that life probably wouldn't have evolved on the Earth and we wouldn't be here today... "This vacuum cleaner idea goes back to when the long-period comets coming in from the Oort Cloud were viewed as being the only significant impact risk," says Horner. "In the 1950s there were only one or two near-Earth asteroids known, so they were viewed as oddities." ...Since the 1950s, scientists have discovered more objects in the solar system, and they say many of them could...

Jupiter increases risk of comet strike on Earth 11:53 24 August 2007 NewScientist.com news service David Shiga Earth experienced an especially heavy bombardment of asteroids and comets early in the solar system's history (Illustration: Julian Baum) Contrary to prevailing wisdom, Jupiter does not protect Earth from comet strikes. In fact, Earth would suffer fewer impacts without the influence of Jupiter's gravity, a new study says. It could have implications for determining which solar systems are most hospitable to life. A 1994 study showed that replacing Jupiter with a much smaller planet like Uranus or Neptune would lead to 1000 times...

A mini asteroid collided safely with Sudan this week, but mega disaster looms with nearly 1000 hazardous near-Earth objects roaming our universe—plus even more dangerous ones we haven't spotted yet. With no response plan for the worst-case scenario in place anywhere on Earth, four-time shuttle astronaut Thomas D. Jones offers a call to arms against the coming cosmic storm. Early last Monday, Richard Kowalski, a University of Arizona astronomer at the Catalina Sky Survey team's 60-in. search telescope atop Mt. Lemmon near Tucson, flashed word to NASA of the discovery of a new Near Earth Object (NEO). The small asteroid,...

STRANGE ASTEROID: Newly-discovered asteroid 2009 BD is slowly passing by Earth today only 400,000 miles away. The small 10m-wide space rock poses no threat, but it merits attention anyway. The orbit of 2009 BD appears to be almost identical to the orbit of Earth. 2009 BD may be a rare co-orbital asteroid, circling the sun in near-tandem with our planet. Extrapolating the motion of 2009 BD into the future, we see that it remains in the vicinity of Earth for many months to come, never receding farther than 0.1 AU (9.3 million miles) until Nov. 2010. Future observations may reveal...

AN asteroid discovered today will hit Earth's atmosphere over Sudan in a few hours -SNIP- The asteroid would create a large fireball about 10.46pm EDT (1.46pm AEST) as it burns up, a team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said. "We want to stress that this object is -SNIP- a threat," said Timothy Spahr, director of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center at Harvard in Massachusetts. "We're excited since this is the first time we have issued a prediction that an object will enter Earth's atmosphere," Dr Spahr said. The asteroid, known as a meteoroid, -SNIP- "A typical meteor...

AN asteroid discovered today will hit Earth's atmosphere over Sudan in a few hours but will burn up before it can hit the ground or endanger aircraft, astronomers say. The asteroid would create a large fireball about 10.46pm EDT (1.46pm AEST) as it burns up, a team at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics said. "We want to stress that this object is not a threat," said Timothy Spahr, director of the International Astronomical Union's Minor Planet Center at Harvard in Massachusetts. "We're excited since this is the first time we have issued a prediction that an object will enter Earth's...

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...