This photo shows the view from inside the dome of NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility during a night of observing. The 3.2-meter (10.5-foot) telescope atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea will be used to measure the infrared spectrum of asteroid 2001 FO32. Credit: UH/IfA Larger View
The interplanetary interloper won't come closer than 1.25 million miles to Earth, but it will present a valuable scientific opportunity for astronomers.
The largest asteroid predicted to pass by our planet in 2021 will be at its closest on March 21, providing astronomers a rare opportunity to get a good look at a rocky relic that formed at the dawn of our solar system.
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Polarization: From better sunglasses to a better way of looking at asteroid surfaces | EurekAlert!
IMAGE: Dylan Hickson is a research scientist at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico and lead author of the paper. view more
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Using the same principles that make polarized sunglasses possible, a team of researchers at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico have developed a technique that will help better defend against asteroids on a collision course with Earth.
A new study recently published in The Planetary Science Journal found a better way to interpret radar signals bounced off asteroids' surfaces. The data can better tell us if an asteroid is porous, fluffy or rocky, which matters because there are hundreds of near-Earth asteroids that could potentially hit the planet.
NASA says relax about that jumbo asteroid set to swing by on March 21 - CNET
One of the reasons the asteroid is attracting extra attention is its size. It's a big 'un, measuring in with an estimated diameter of up to about a mile (1.7 kilometers). There's still some uncertainty about the diameter, which could be as small as 2,500 feet (770 meters), though that would still be plenty hefty.
Organic Material Found on an Asteroid Sample Returned by Hayabusa 1 - Universe Today
Panspermia is an idea that has been around for a long time. It was first mentioned in the 5th century BC by Anaxagoras , one of the most prominent pre-Socratic philosophers. The problem with the theory is that there's never really been any evidence to back it up. That lack of evidence has changed dramatically in the last 20 or so years, and recently more data has been added to that dataset.
Organics have been found on meteorites before, but Hayabusa marked the first time a sample of a " S-type " asteroid was observed to contain organic molecules. It even came directly from the source, rather than being subjected to significant amounts of time on Earth itself before being tested.
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What Hollywood Gets Wrong (and Right!
In the 1998 movie, “Armageddon,” an asteroid the width of Texas is about to hit Earth. The heroes who stop it in just the nick of time are a group of orange-suited Americans, all men.
Not that an asteroid couldn’t slam into Earth, mind you. Asteroids — mostly tiny ones — pass by our planet virtually every second. But the people charged with stopping the big ones aren’t reaching for their spacesuits with mere hours to spare.
'Nice little firework': Suspected asteroid rattles buildings, makes fireball above
A suspected asteroid streaked though the skies over northern Vermont on Sunday, moving so fast and creating so much force that it rattled buildings on the ground, according to NASA.
The "fireball" was spotted by hundreds of sky-watchers around 5:38 p.m., NASA said on Facebook . It first appeared at 52 miles above Mount Mansfield State Forest before traveling 33 miles through the upper atmosphere and burning up 33 miles above Orleans County.
Commenters on NASA's Facebook posts — from Vermont, New Hampshire and on the Canadian side of the border in Quebec — described hearing a "rumble" or "sonic boom" at the time the fireball was shooting through the sky. Some even said their houses shook during the incident.
Launch of asteroid deflection demonstrator slips to November – Spaceflight Now
The launch of a NASA spacecraft designed to smash into an asteroid to try out a technique that could protect Earth from threatening space rocks has slipped from July until November, at the earliest, after development delays partially caused by coronavirus-related work slowdowns.
NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test, or DART, spacecraft will take aim on a pair of asteroids orbiting one another. A team of ground-based astronomers, along with an Italian ridealong CubeSat, will observe the spacecraft’s destructive collision.
Lucy mission: NASA's visit to the Trojan asteroids | Space
Along with a mission called Psyche , Lucy was approved in January 2017 as part of NASA's Discovery program, which supports focused and relatively cheap planetary missions whose development costs are capped at around $450 million. A year after approval, the mission was officially given a schedule and a set of eight asteroid targets.
Lucy is named for a famous female Australopithecus afarensis fossil found in Ethiopia that, as a relative of modern humans, helped illuminate the evolution of our species. It is hoped that the spacecraft Lucy will similarly elucidate our solar system's earliest days.
Happening on Twitter
On March 21, an asteroid named 2011 FO32 will safely pass by Earth, with its closest approach being a distance of a… https://t.co/KQ1mq3YEyn NASA (from Pale Blue Dot) Thu Mar 11 18:20:00 +0000 2021
An asteroid that formed at the dawn of our solar system will zoom safely past Earth on March 21. The object, called… https://t.co/F8LUp8vWvU NASAJPL (from Pasadena, Calif.) Thu Mar 11 18:04:13 +0000 2021
An asteroid will speed safely past Earth on March 21, providing astronomers a rare opportunity to get a good look a… https://t.co/QarbODnJyO NASASolarSystem (from Milky Way Galaxy) Thu Mar 11 18:16:53 +0000 2021
1.7km asteroid heading towards Earth will safely pass our planet, NASA says https://t.co/UkltIBiIt2 Newsweek (from New York, NY) Wed Mar 10 08:49:09 +0000 2021
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