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Recent research led by the University of Maryland using the Zwicky Transient Facility telescope has revealed that the Taurid swarm, a stream of space debris from the comet Encke, poses less of a threat than previously believed. Credit: SciTechDaily.com ======================================================================== New research indicates that the Taurid swarm contains fewer large asteroids than anticipated, suggesting a lower threat level. This finding from observations using the Zwicky Transient Facility telescope informs both planetary defense strategies and our understanding of how comets and asteroids evolve. Discovering the Taurid Swarm’s Secrets Astronomers have promising news about potentially hazardous asteroids near Earth: there aren’t as...

Over the next several weeks, our planet will have a close encounter with the Taurid meteor swarm. It will be the closest that we have been to the center of the meteor swarm since 1975, and we won’t have an encounter this close again until 2032. So for astronomers, this is a really big deal. And hopefully there will be no danger to Earth during this pass, but some scientists are absolutely convinced that the Tunguska explosion of 1908 which flattened 80 million trees in Russia was caused by an object from the Taurid meteor swarm. As you will see...

Every year, Earth passes through the tail of the comet Encke - twice. This isn’t unusual. We regularly cross cometary trails of ice and dust. But this one may be different. It could have been the source of the dramatic 1908 Tunguska airburst which flattened hundreds of square kilometres of Russian forest. The 45m wide comet fragment struck on June 30, at the height of the Beta Taurid shower. Was it, in fact, a part of that shower? Astronomer and science advocate Dr Phil Plait says it is possible. Calculations of its trajectory indicate the Tunguska object came from the...