Moonlet

These strange shots of Earth are a Halloween treat.

Looking back home.

On Sunday, Sept. 29, Earth captured a new "minimoon" called 2024 PT5. The bus-size asteroid is expected to orbit our planet for 57 days, but is too small to be visible to amateur skywatchers.

The Gaia mission has revealed hundreds of asteroids with possible moons. The info comes from precise measurements of orbits of more than 150,000 asteroids. The post Gaia spots over 350 asteroids with possible moons first appeared on EarthSky.

In studying data collected from NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) mission, which in 2022 sent a spacecraft to intentionally collide with the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos, the mission's science team has discovered new information on the origins of the target binary asteroid system and why the DART spacecraft was so effective in shifting Dimorphos' orbit.  In five recently […]

After NASA's successful planetary defense test in 2022, China's space agency plans to launch a spacecraft designed to redirect a near-Earth asteroid by 2030.

NASA astronaut Andre Douglas has been named the backup astronaut for three astronauts on NASA's round-the-moon mission. Douglas was certified for liftoff...

NASA has selected 12 participating scientists to join ESA's (European Space Agency) Hera mission, which is scheduled to launch in October 2024. Hera will study the binary asteroid system Didymos, including the moonlet Dimorphos, which was impacted by NASA's DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft on Sept. 26, 2022. The objectives of DART and Hera […]

For the benefit of all, NASA released a summary Thursday of the fifth biennial Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise. NASA's Planetary Defense

Dinkinesh, the asteroid visited by NSA's Lucy mission in 2023, has a small moon that is made from two objects touching each other.

NASA's Lucy mission will fire its main engines for the first time on Wednesday (Jan. 31.)

On November 1, NASA's Lucy spacecraft flew by not just its first asteroid -- the small main-belt asteroid (152830) Dinkinesh -- but its first two.

NASA's Lucy spacecraft just flew by its first asteroid — and discovered that the space rock has a companion.

The sensor-packed detective spacecraft will scan the battered asteroid Dimorphos up close.

The Hubble telescope caught these boulders from asteroid Dimorphos, following the impact by NASA's DART mission for "planetary defense." The post Boulders from asteroid Dimorphos, after spacecraft impact first appeared on EarthSky.

The large impact craters dotting our planet are powerful reminders that asteroids and comets strike the Earth from time to time. As often said, it's not a question of "if"; it's a matter of "when" our planet will face an impending strike from space. But an impact is one existential threat humanity is finally starting to take seriously and wrap its head around.

Scientists revealed the extent of the impact DART had on its targets Dimorphos and Didymos, including the "amazing" amount of material it blasted away.

Four new studies confirm that NASA's DART mission, which crashed a rocket into the asteroid Dimorphos, changed the asteroid's trajectory and could potentially save Earth one day, given enough time to prepare.

MIT postdoc Saverio Cambioni discusses new science from NASA's DART mission, which slammed into asteroid Dimorphos, deflecting it slightly and finding it to be a boulder-rich "rubble-pile."

Spoke season on Saturn comes in cycles centered on Saturn's equinoxes, which happen only about every 15 years. It's happening now! The post It's spoke season on Saturn! first appeared on EarthSky.