Asteroids, Comets and Meteors News

September 9, 2016

Earth's Carbon Points to Planetary Smashup

Anomalous Grooves On Martian Moon Phobos

Planet Nine May Spell Doom for Solar System

Hunt for Ninth Planet Reveals Distant Objects

Latest Headlines

updated 12:42am EDT

NASA's SDO Witnesses a Double Eclipse

Sep. 2, 2016 — Early in the morning of Sept. 1, 2016, NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory, or SDO, caught both Earth and the moon crossing in front of the sun. SDO keeps a constant eye on the ... read more

New Light on the Complex Nature of 'Hot Jupiter' Atmospheres

Sep. 2, 2016 — A team of international researchers used state-of-the-art modelling techniques to extensively study the atmosphere of a 'hot Jupiter' found 150 light-years from Earth. The ... read more

NASA Team Probes Peculiar Age-Defying Star

Aug. 29, 2016 — For years, astronomers have puzzled over a massive star lodged deep in the Milky Way that shows conflicting signs of being extremely old and extremely young. Researchers ... read more

A Better Way to Learn If Alien Planets Have the Right Stuff

Aug. 24, 2016 — A new method for analyzing the chemical composition of stars may help scientists winnow the search for Earth 2.0. Researchers describe a computational modeling technique that ... read more

Unexpected Trove of Gas Discovered Around Larger Stars

Aug. 25, 2016 — Astronomers using ALMA surveyed dozens of young stars -- some Sun-like and others approximately double that size -- and discovered that the larger variety have surprisingly ... read more

NASA Establishes Contact With STEREO Mission

Aug. 23, 2016 — NASA has reestablished contact with its STEREO-B spacecraft, after communications were lost on Oct. 1, 2014. Over 22 months, the STEREO team has worked to attempt contact ... read more

Fossilized Rivers Suggest Warm, Wet Ancient Mars

Aug. 23, 2016 — Extensive systems of fossilized riverbeds have been discovered on an ancient region of the Martian surface, supporting the idea that the now cold and dry Red Planet had a warm and wet climate about 4 ... read more

The Comet That Disappeared: What Happened to Ison?

Aug. 19, 2016 — Comet ISON, a bright ball of frozen matter from the earliest days of the universe, was inbound from the Oort Cloud at the edge of the solar system and expected to pierce the ... read more

A New Goldilocks for Habitable Planets

Aug. 19, 2016 — The search for habitable, alien worlds needs to make room for a second 'Goldilocks,' according to a researcher. A new study suggests that simply being in the habitable zone isn't sufficient to ... read more

NASA Prepares to Launch First U.S. Asteroid Sample Return Mission

Aug. 17, 2016 — NASA is preparing to launch its first mission to return a sample of an asteroid to Earth. The mission will help scientists investigate how planets formed and how life began, ... read more

Jupiter Is Making The Perseid Meteor Shower Way Better This Year

How NASA Brings Parts Of The Universe Home

Our Extraterrestrial Neighbors Might've Already Had An AI Revolution

2 Comets Will Pass By Earth This Week — The Closest In 250 Years

The Genesis Project: New Life on Exoplanets

Aug. 31, 2016 — Can life be brought to celestial bodies outside our solar system which are not permanently inhabitable? This is the question with which experts are dealing in a recent ... read more

NASA Asteroid Redirect Mission Completes Design Milestone

Aug. 17, 2016 — Following a key program review, NASA approved the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM) to proceed to the next phase of design and development for the mission's robotic segment. ARM is a two-part ... read more

Van Allen Probes Catch Rare Glimpse of Supercharged Radiation Belt

Aug. 15, 2016 — An interplanetary shock struck the outermost of Earth's Van Allen radiation belts on March 17, 2015, resulting in the greatest geomagnetic storm of the past 10 ... read more

Venus May Have Been Habitable, NASA Climate Modeling Suggests

Aug. 11, 2016 — Venus may have had a shallow liquid-water ocean and habitable surface temperatures for up to two billion years of its early history, according to NASA computer modeling of the planet's ancient ... read more

Earth Interacted With Supernova Remnants for 1 Million Years

Aug. 10, 2016 — Physicists have succeeded in detecting a time-resolved supernova signal in the Earth's microfossil record. As the group shows, the supernova signal was first detectable at a time starting about ... read more

Stellar Lab in Sagittarius

Aug. 10, 2016 — The small smattering of bright blue stars in a new ESO image is the perfect cosmic laboratory in which to study the life and death of stars. Known as Messier 18 this star cluster contains stars that ... read more

Perseid Meteors Could See 'Surge in Activity' on Aug. 11-12

Aug. 9, 2016 — Friday, Aug. 12, sees the annual maximum of the Perseid meteor shower. This year, as well as the normal peak on the night of Aug. 12-13, meteor scientists are predicting additional enhanced activity ... read more

Watch a Tiny Space Rocket Work

Aug. 8, 2016 — Moving a nanosatellite around in space takes only a tiny amount of thrust. Engineers teamed up, put a nanoscale rocket under a microscope, and watched what ... read more

Evidence of Martian Life Could Be Hard to Find in Some Meteorite Blast Sites

Aug. 8, 2016 — Signs of life from under Mars’ surface may not survive in rocks excavated by some meteorite impacts, scientists suggest at the point of preliminary study ... read more

Most Volcanic Activity on Mercury Stopped About 3.5 Billion Years Ago

Aug. 5, 2016 — New research finds that major volcanic activity on the planet Mercury most likely ended about 3.5 billion years ago. These findings add insight into the geological evolution of Mercury in particular, ... read more

Veins on Mars Were Formed by Evaporating Ancient Lakes

Aug. 5, 2016 — Mineral veins found in Mars's Gale Crater were formed by the evaporation of ancient Martian lakes, a new study has ... read more

'GPS in Space': Bringing Autonomous Interplanetary Travel Closer to Reality

Aug. 4, 2016 — An accurate method for spacecraft navigation takes a leap forward today as new research reveals that a spacecraft's position in space in the direction of a particular pulsar can be calculated ... read more

Lasers Melt Rocks to Reveal Development of Super-Earths and How Giant Impacts Make Magma

Aug. 3, 2016 — New experiments provide insight into how Earth-type planets form when giant asteroids or planetesimals collide and how the interiors of such planets ... read more

Laser Nudges May Help Destroy Space Debris Threatening Communications, Navigation on Earth

Aug. 3, 2016 — Human-made debris from inactive satellites and obsolete space missions pose ongoing threats to active communication and navigation satellites -- and the humans on Earth who depend upon them. In a new ... read more

Apollo Astronauts Experiencing Higher Rates of Cardiovascular-Related Deaths

July 28, 2016 — Members of the successful Apollo space program are experiencing higher rates of cardiovascular problems that are thought to be caused by their exposure to deep space radiation, according to a new ... read more

Scientists Simulated a Nuclear Explosion of an Asteroid

July 27, 2016 — Scientists are developing measures to protect the Earth from potentially dangerous celestial bodies. With the help of supercomputer SKIF Cyberia, the scientists simulated the nuclear explosion of an ... read more

White Dwarf Lashes Red Dwarf With Mystery Ray

July 27, 2016 — Astronomers have discovered a new type of exotic binary star: in the system AR Scorpii a rapidly spinning white dwarf star is powering electrons up to almost the speed of light. These high energy ... read more

Transformations to Granular Zircon Revealed: Meteor Crater, Arizona

July 27, 2016 — Having been reported in lunar samples returned by Apollo astronauts, meteorites, impact glass, and at a number of meteorite craters on Earth, granular zircon is the most unusual and enigmatic type of ... read more

Jupiter's Great Red Spot Heats Planet's Upper Atmosphere

July 27, 2016 — Researchers have discovered that Jupiter's Great Red Spot may provide the mysterious source of energy required to heat the planet's upper atmosphere to the unusually high values ... read more

Finding the Loneliest Young Star

July 27, 2016 — Alone on the cosmic road, far from any known celestial object, a young, independent star is going through a tremendous growth spurt. When a team of scientists examined infrared images of the same ... read more

Wednesday, August 31, 2016