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On Friday the 13th (yes, really) of April 2029, Earth will avoid an apocalyptic event by an astronomical hair’s breadth as the asteroid Apophis, streaks by. It will come closer to Earth than the Moon — much closer in fact. It will come between us and the satellites that bring us radio, television and military intelligence. Apophis is named after an Egyptian god of chaos and evil. If it were to hit Earth, chaos would be the least of our trouble. It’s 1,000 feet across, the size of a football stadium, and it’s going 69,000 miles an hour. Apophis won’t...

Graphic of the possible locations of 2024 YR4 on December 22, 2032, as of February 19, 2025. Earth is close to the center of the white circle, which represents the Moon’s orbital path. The range of possibilities has decreased from the previous image because of the additional data gathered. Credit: NASA JPL/CNEOS ================================================================== Astronomers are closely monitoring asteroid 2024 YR4, which once had the highest recorded impact probability for its size. Current estimates place its chance of hitting Earth at 1.5% in 2032, with a smaller risk for the Moon. With the full moon now past, the skies have darkened,...

Colorized microscopic image of sodium carbonate deposit on Ryugu sample. Credit: KyotoU/Toru Matsumoto ============================================================================== Deposits Found on a Nearby Asteroid Point to Salty Water in the Outer Solar System Scientists have uncovered salt minerals in samples from asteroid Ryugu, pointing to a past with liquid water. The presence of these salts suggests that Ryugu’s parent body once hosted a warm, saline environment before the water vanished. This discovery could help us understand the role of water in shaping planets and moons across the Solar System. Ryugu’s Salty Secret: What Scientists Found Asteroids that pass near Earth often spark concern about...

The probability that a major asteroid, big enough to wipe out an entire city, will hit Earth in 2032 has just increased to 1 in 32, or 3.1%, according to NASA. On Feb. 7, NASA increased the likelihood that asteroid 2024 YR4 will hit Earth in seven years time from 1.2% to 2.3%. The odds of impact then climbed to 2.6%, and are now at 3.1%, according to the latest data on NASA's Center for Near Earth Object Studies website. Asteroid 2024 YR4 has an estimated diameter of around 177 feet (54 meters), or about as wide as the leaning...

Scientists have been left baffled after discovering something vast and radioactive lurking in the depths of the Pacific Ocean. An international team of scientists has found unexpectedly high levels of the rare radioactive isotope beryllium-10 in samples from the Pacific seabed. And they believe it could have been caused by a blast of radiation from space more than 10 million years ago. Beryllium-10 is an isotope - a variant of an element with a different number of neutrons in its atomic nuclei, formed when cosmic rays hit oxygen and nitrogen in the upper atmosphere. After forming, this isotope falls to...

At the end of 2024, astronomers detected an asteroid...the estimated orbit put it at a 1% chance of striking Earth. As of this writing, it now has a 2.3% chance of striking Earth on December 22, 2032. While you might think this resembles the plot of Don't Look Up, none of this is too unusual. You can see this in the image above, which indicates potential trajectory points. The 2.3% odds aren't simply the chances of a die roll. What it means is that when astronomers run 1,000 orbital simulations based on the data we have, 23 of them impact...

An asteroid big enough to destroy a city has a 1.9% chance of impacting Earth on December 22, 2032.

An asteroid with the power to unleash an explosion one hundred times greater than an atomic bomb has triggered global space agency alarms. The odds that the space rock dubbed Y4, which is nearly the size of a football field at between 130 and 300 feet wide, could hit Earth is now too close to ignore, they warn. “If you put it over Paris or London or New York, you basically wipe out the whole city and some of the environs,” Bruce Betts, chief scientist of The Planetary Society, told Agence France-Presse last week. The asteroid was first observed on...

Studies of rock and dust from asteroid Bennu delivered to Earth by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification and Security–Regolith Explorer) spacecraft have revealed molecules that, on our planet, are key to life, as well as a history of saltwater that could have served as the “broth” for these compounds to interact and combine. The findings do not show evidence for life itself, but they do suggest the conditions necessary for the emergence of life were widespread across the early solar system, increasing the odds life could have formed on other planets and moons. “NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission already is...

2024 YR4 is a newly spotted asteroid with the potential to hit Earth... A 1.2% chance the asteroid hits Earth based on very preliminary calculations. Which means—obviously—a 98.8% chance the rocky object misses us! The Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS) first spotted 2024 YR4 on December 27, 2024. At that point the asteroid was 515,116 miles (829,000 kilometers) from Earth. The asteroid is currently moving away from our planet but its next close approach will occur in December 2028. CNEOS reports that the asteroid is 180 feet (55 meters) across, and its speed at (potential) impact estimated at 10.76...

This weekend, the mountain-size space rock will peak in brightness in a rare once-in-a-decade event that you can observe from home with basic stargazing binoculars — or in a free livestream. Named (887) Alinda, the near-Earth asteroid measures an estimated 2.6 miles (4.2 kilometers) wide — roughly the width of Manhattan — according to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. On Wednesday (Jan. 8), the chunky space rock made its closest approach to Earth in decades, swooping to within 7.6 million miles (12.3 million km) of our planet, or about 32 times the average distance between Earth and the moon. Alinda isn't...

An artistic representation of Chiron’s nucleus surrounded by debris and a coma of dust and gas. Credit: William Gonzalez Sierra UCF researchers utilized the James Webb Space Telescope to uncover unique characteristics of (2060) Chiron, a distant “centaur” that exhibits traits of both a comet and an asteroid. These findings provide valuable insights into the origins of our Solar System. Although our Solar System is billions of years old, we’ve only recently gained deeper insight into one of its most dynamic and intriguing members: (2060) Chiron. Chiron belongs to a group of celestial objects known as “Centaurs.” These objects orbit...

Explanation: Based on its well-measured orbit, 3200 Phaethon (sounds like FAY-eh-thon) is recognized as the source of the meteoroid stream responsible for the annual Geminid meteor shower. Even though most meteor shower parents are comets, 3200 Phaethon is a known and closely tracked near-Earth asteroid with a 1.4 year orbital period. Rocky and sun-baked, its perihelion or closest approach to the Sun is well within the orbit of innermost planet Mercury. In this telescopic field of view, the asteroid's rapid motion against faint background stars of the heroic constellation Perseus left a short trail during the two minute total exposure...

Explanation: It was a night of 100,000 meteors. The Great Meteor Storm of 1833 was perhaps the most impressive meteor event in recent history. Best visible over eastern North America during the pre-dawn hours of November 13, many people -- including a young Abraham Lincoln -- were woken up to see the sky erupt in streaks and flashes. Hundreds of thousands of meteors blazed across the sky, seemingly pouring out of the constellation of the Lion (Leo). The featured image is a digitization of a wood engraving which itself was based on a painting from a first-person account. We know...

These asteroids are as small as 10 m across, making them the smallest asteroids ever observed in the main asteroid belt. An artist’s illustration of Webb revealing, in the infrared, a population of main-belt decameter asteroids. Image credit: Ella Maru / Julien de Wit. Asteroid discoveries are essential for planetary-defense efforts aiming to prevent impacts with Earth, including the more frequent megaton explosions from decameter impactors. While large asteroids (=>100 km) have remained in the main belt since their formation, small asteroids are commonly transported to the near-Earth object (NEO) population. “We have been able to detect NEOs down to...

The location the asteroid will burn over. Image Credit: PorcupenWorks/Shutterstock.com, modified by IFLScience In a matter of hours, a small asteroid will burn over the Siberian skies. This is only the 11th time that an asteroid has been predicted to hit our planet before it actually happened, but it shows that the system of planetary defense is working! At around 4:15 pm UTC today, the asteroid will burn in the atmosphere. The object is tiny, about 70 centimeters (27.6 inches) in diameter. It's not the smallest known asteroid – a previously predicted impactor holds that record for now. It's still...

On April 13th, 2029 an absolutely gigantic asteroid known as “Apophis” will come very close to our planet. In fact, we are being told that Apophis will actually be ten times closer than the Moon as it zips past the Earth. The good news is that scientists are assuring us that there is zero chance that this enormous space rock will hit us. The bad news is that we cannot see Apophis right now, and if there is even the slightest change in the projected trajectory it could end up slamming into our planet. Needless to say, if Apophis actually...

Bennu is a roughly 0.3-mile-wide (500 meters) asteroid that orbits in near-Earth space. Scientists suspect it's a chunk of a larger asteroid that broke off due to a collision farther out. Telescope observations and data collected by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft showed that Bennu has minerals that have been altered by water. Hence, scientists suspect the asteroid's parent body accreted ice that subsequently melted after it formed around 4.5 billion years ago...The team found various varieties of the aqueously altered minerals, including serpentine, smectite, carbonates, magnetite, sulfides, and phosphates. The minerals are present as individual particles and as crusts coating other...

Explanation: Back from asteroid 101955 Bennu, a 110-pound, 31-inch wide sample return capsule rests in a desert on planet Earth in this photo, taken at the Department of Defense Utah Test and Training Range near Salt Lake City last Sunday, September 24. Dropped off by the OSIRIS-Rex spacecraft, the capsule looks charred from the extreme temperatures experienced during its blistering descent through Earth's dense atmosphere. OSIRIS-Rex began its home-ward journey from Bennu in May of 2021. Delivered to NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston on September 25, the capsule's canister is expected to contain an uncontaminated sample of about a...

Explanation: Put on your red/blue glasses and float next to asteroid 101955 Bennu. Shaped like a spinning toy top with boulders littering its rough surface, the tiny Solar System world is about one Empire State Building (less than 500 meters) across. Frames used to construct this 3D anaglyph were taken by PolyCam on the OSIRIS_REx spacecraft on December 3, 2018 from a distance of about 80 kilometers. With a sample from the asteroid's rocky surface on board, OSIRIS_REx departed Bennu's vicinity in May of 2021 and is now enroute to planet Earth. The robotic spacecraft is scheduled to return the...