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It’s a disaster scenario that Hollywood has picked up on (think Deep Impact). An incoming object menaces the Earth. Scientists try to destroy it with nuclear weapons, but the horrified populace soon discovers that the blast has simply broken the object into pieces, each with the potential to wreak havoc planet-wide. Now we learn that an impact between two asteroids causing a similar crack-up may have resulted in the cataclysmic event some 65 million years ago that destroyed the dinosaurs. Researchers from Southwest Research Institute and Charles University (Prague) have been studying the asteroid (298) Baptistina, combining their observations with...

The Dark Ages : Were They Darker Than We Imagined? By Greg Bryant Published in the September 1999 issue of Universe As we approach the end of the Second Millennium, a review of ancient history is not what you would normally expect to read in the pages of Universe. Indeed, except for reflecting on the AD 837 apparition of Halley's Comet (when it should have been as bright as Venus and would have moved through 60 degrees of sky in one day as it passed just 0.03 AU from Earth - three times closer than Hyakutake in 1996), you may...

Date: Posted 3/4/2002 Cataclysm 3.9 Billion Years Ago Was Caused By Asteroids, Not Comets, Researchers Say WASHINGTON (February 28, 2002) -- The bombardment that resurfaced the Earth 3.9 billion years ago was produced by asteroids, not comets, according to David Kring of the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and Barbara Cohen, formerly at the UA and now with the University of Hawaii. Their findings appear today in the Journal of Geophysical Research - Planets, published by the American Geophysical Union. The significance of this conclusion is that the bombardment was so severe that it destroyed older rocks on ...

Scientists have launched a bid to observe and understand mysterious flashes of light on the surface of the moon. The ‘transient luminous lunar phenomena’ occur several times a week and illuminate parts of the moon’s landscape for a brief period of time before disappearing. Sometimes, a reverse effect which causes the lunar surface to darken has also been observed. Although there are several theories about the lunar mystery lights’ origins, they have not yet been fully explained. Now astronomers from Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg (JMU) in Bavaria, Germany have set up a telescope which will use artificial intelligence to automatically detect the...

Science does not know exactly how these phenomena occur on the moon. But it has attempted to explain them: the impact of a meteor, for example, should cause a brief glow. Such flashes could also occur when electrically charged particles of the solar wind react with moon dust. "Seismic activities...would explain the luminous phenomena, some of which last for hours," says Hakan Kayal, Professor of Space Technology...in Bavaria, Germany. Kayal's team built a lunar telescope and put it into operation in April 2019. It is located in a private observatory in Spain, about 100 kilometres north of Seville in a...

Sirangelo has resigned, and Reuters reports that his "ouster was sealed by increasing skepticism that 2024 was a realistic deadline for moon landings." This also comes after a proposal from NASA to create a separate directorate for lunar missions was rejected by lawmakers. Bridenstine said on Thursday that "given NASA is no longer pursuing the new mission directorate, Mark has opted to pursue other opportunities."

NASA'S official plans to build a permanent base on the Moon have seemingly leaked online, revealing how and when astronauts will return to the rocky world for the first time in 50 years. Please see link for full article.

Asteroid (66391) 1999 KW4 is actually a double asteroid or a binary asteroid...composed of one large asteroid orbited by a smaller moon...about a third of a mile wide and orbits around the larger body about once every 16 hours. The Las Cumbres Observatory describes 1999 KW4 as “slightly squashed at the poles and with a mountain ridge around the equator, which runs all the way around the asteroid. This ridge gives the primary an appearance similar to a walnut or a spinning top.” While 1999 KW4 is classified as a “Potentially Hazardous Asteroid” by the Minor Planet Center, it should...

NASA has announced that it will put a woman on the moon in the next five years, although a hefty bill is attached to the mission. [Reuters / Joey Roulette] This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo landing, and in celebration, NASA has announced a special name for the upcoming initiative. It will be called “Artemis,” the Greek goddess of the moon who is also Apollo’s twin sister. [The Verge / Loren Grush]The price tag isn’t cheap though: The space agency has asked for a$1.6 billion in addition to the $21 billion that has already been requested for...

Trump was effusive about updates to the budget supporting the Special Olympics, and a return to space “in a BIG WAY.”“Today, I officially updated my budget to include $18 million for our GREAT @SpecialOlympics,” Trump tweeted, “whose athletes inspire us and make our Nation so PROUD!”“Under my Administration, we are restoring @NASA to greatness and we are going back to the Moon, then Mars,” the President also said. “I am updating my budget to include an additional $1.6 billion so that we can return to Space in a BIG WAY!”And despite an original proposal that cut the Great Lakes Restoration...

After a revised budget proposal from the Whitehouse added another $1.6billion mostly to pay to stop more SLS delays NASA announced that their plan to return to the Moon in 5 years would be named 'Artemis'. Which is of course the best name for any lunar program, so good in fact that NASA aren't the first people to use the name of this goddess for a space program. So let's have a quick tour of other projects with the same name. Realistically, the budget may not happen, for obvious political reasons, but I hope the name stays.

Somebody alert Jeff Bezos: the Moon is shrinking. According to a new research study, the Moon may be shrinking as it experiences lunar quakes, known as "moonquakes." Researchers analyzed 28 moonquakes from 1969 to 1977 and came up with the startling observation that eight of the quakes came from "true tectonic activity — the movement of crustal plates," as opposed to impacts from asteroids or rumblings inside the celestial satellite. “We found that a number of the quakes recorded in the Apollo data happened very close to the faults seen in the [NASA’s Apollo and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter missions] LRO...

Billionaire entrepreneur Jeff Bezos, the founder of rocket company Blue Origin, will unveil plans on Thursday for missions to the moon tailored to the U.S. government’s renewed push to establish a lunar outpost in just five years, people familiar with the matter said. Bezos, the world’s richest man and also chief executive and founder of Amazon.com, is scheduled to host a rare media event at 4 p.m. EDT (2000 GMT) in Washington to provide “an update on our progress and share our vision of going to space to benefit Earth,” Blue Origin said in an advisory. Blue Origin spokeswoman Caitlin...

There are a number of theories about where the moon came from. Our best guess is that it was formed when the Earth was hit by a large object known as Theia. The impact threw up huge amounts of debris into orbit, which eventually coalesced to form the moon. There’s a problem with this theory. The mathematical models show that most of the material that makes up the moon should come from Theia. But samples from the Apollo missions show that most of the material on the moon came from Earth. A paper out earlier this week in Nature Geoscience...

NASA has updated a planned call for proposals for lunar landers to enable a human mission in 2024, broadening the scope to include integrated lander concepts. In a procurement filing issued late April 26, NASA updated an earlier notice published April 8 that announced plans to solicit proposals for an ascent stage for a human-rated lunar lander. Instead, the upcoming procurement will seek proposals for “a complete integrated lander” that includes an ascent module as well as a descent module and transfer stage. A formal call for proposals, part of NASA’s Next Space Technologies for Exploration Partnerships, or NextSTEP, program...

On April 17, 1970, Apollo 13 returned to Earth after narrowly avoiding a deadly disaster in space. This was supposed to be the third mission to land on the moon. Astronauts Jim Lovell, Jack Swigert and Fred Haise launched on April 11 and were two days into their trip to the moon when an oxygen tank exploded, and NASA had to abort the mission. When the astronauts called mission control to report the incident, Swigert uttered the famous quote, "Houston, we've had a problem."

A NASA technology demonstration may still be viable on the lunar surface.A NASA piggyback experiment may have survived the April 11 crash of Israel's Beresheet moon lander, experts said... The NASA payload, known as the Lunar Retroreflector Array (LRA), is a technology demonstration composed of eight mirrors made of quartz cube corners that are set into a dome-shaped aluminum frame. These mirrors are intended to serve as markers for other spacecraft, which can use them to orient themselves for precision landings.

Meteor showers bring moon geysers. A lunar orbiter spotted extra water around the moon when the moon passed through streams of cosmic dust that can cause meteor showers on Earth. The water was probably released from lunar soil by tiny meteorite impacts, planetary scientist Mehdi Benna of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and colleagues report April 15 in in Nature Geoscience. Those random impacts suggest water is buried all over the moon, rather than isolated in freezing dark craters — and that the moon has been wet for billions of years.

Morris Khan, Beresheet's largest funder and president of SpaceIL, announced on Saturday night that he is establishing Beresheet 2 to complete the mission of an Israeli spacecraft landing on the moon. "In light of the wonderful messages of support and encouragement and excitement I received from all over the world, I decided that we're going to establish Beresheet 2," Khan said. "We're going to put a new spacecraft on the moon and we're going to complete the mission. Tomorrow [Sunday] morning - first thing- we have a task force - we're going to sit down and plan...

Israel's first moon lander came up just short in its historic touchdown bid this afternoon (April 11). The robotic Beresheet spacecraft, built by SpaceIL and Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), aimed to become the first Israeli craft, and the first privately funded mission, ever to land softly on the moon. But the little robot couldn't quite make it, crashing into the gray dirt around 3:25 p.m. EDT (1925 GMT). Mission control lost communications with the spacecraft when it was about 489 feet (149 meters) above the moon's surface.