Asteroids

NASA+

NASA is bringing the high-stakes world of planetary defense to the Sundance Film Festival, highlighting its upcoming documentary, “Planetary Defenders,” during a panel ahead of its spring 2025 premiere on the agency’s streaming service.

Posted January 17, 2025

Asteroids

Ames Research Center

Ames Research Center's Science Directorate

General

James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)

Missions

NASA Centers & Facilities

The Solar System

NASA’s Webb Reveals Smallest Asteroids Yet Found in Main Asteroid Belt

NASA’s powerful James Webb Space Telescope includes asteroids on its list of objects studied and secrets revealed. A team led by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge repurposed Webb’s observations of a distant star to reveal a population of small asteroids — smaller than astronomers had ever detected orbiting

Posted December 20, 2024

Dawn

Asteroids

Ceres

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Vesta

Lab Work Digs Into Gullies Seen on Giant Asteroid Vesta by NASA’s Dawn

Known as flow formations, these channels could be etched on bodies that would seem inhospitable to liquid because they are exposed to the extreme vacuum conditions of space. Pocked with craters, the surfaces of many celestial bodies in our solar system provide clear evidence of a 4.6-billion-year battering by meteoroids and other space debris.

Posted December 20, 2024

Comets

Asteroids

The Solar System

NASA Researchers Discover More Dark Comets

These celestial objects look like asteroids but act like comets now come in two flavors. The first dark comet — a celestial object that looks like an asteroid but moves through space like a comet — was reported less than two years ago. Soon after, another six were found. In a new paper, researchers announce […]

Posted December 9, 2024

Johnson Space Center

Asteroids

Astromaterials

Bennu

General

Missions

NASA Centers & Facilities

NASA Directorates

OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer)

Planetary Science

Planetary Science Division

Science & Research

Science Mission Directorate

Solar System Exploration Research Virtual Inst.

The Solar System

NASA Shares Asteroid Bennu Sample in Exchange with JAXA

As part of an asteroid sample exchange, NASA has transferred to JAXA (Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) a portion of the asteroid Bennu sample collected by the agency’s OSIRIS-REx mission. The sample was officially handed over by NASA officials during a ceremony on Aug. 22 at JAXA’s Sagamihara, Japan, campus.

Posted August 23, 2024

Asteroids

DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test)

Missions

Planetary Defense

Planetary Defense Coordination Office

Planetary Science

Planetary Science Division

Science Mission Directorate

The Solar System

NASA’s DART Mission Sheds New Light on Target Binary Asteroid System

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 D

Posted July 30, 2024

Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA)

Asteroids

Deep Space Network

Jet Propulsion Laboratory

Planetary Defense

Planetary Defense Coordination Office

Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA)

Space Communications & Navigation Program

NASA’s Planetary Radar Tracks Two Large Asteroid Close Approaches

The Deep Space Network’s Goldstone planetary radar had a busy few days observing asteroids 2024 MK and 2011 UL21 as they safely passed Earth. Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California recently tracked two asteroids as they flew by our planet. One turned out to have a little moon orbiting it, while the […]

Posted July 3, 2024

Asteroids

NEA Scout (Near Earth Asteroid Scout)

NEO Surveyor (Near-Earth Object Surveyor Space Telescope)

Planetary Defense

Planetary Defense Coordination Office

Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA)

NASA Asteroid Experts Create Hypothetical Impact Scenario for Exercise

The fifth Planetary Defense Interagency Tabletop Exercise focused on an asteroid impact scenario designed by NASA JPL’s Center for Near Earth Object Studies. A large asteroid impacting Earth is highly unlikely for the foreseeable future.

Posted July 2, 2024

OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer)

Asteroids

Astrobiology

Astromaterials

Bennu

Goddard Space Flight Center

Johnson Space Center

Planetary Science

The Solar System

Surprising Phosphate Finding in NASA’s OSIRIS-REx Asteroid Sample

Scientists have eagerly awaited the opportunity to dig into the 4.3-ounce (121.6-gram) pristine asteroid Bennu sample collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, and Security – Regolith Explorer) mission since it was delivered to Earth last fall.

Posted June 26, 2024

Asteroids

DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test)

Missions

Planetary Science

Planetary Science Division

Science Mission Directorate

The Solar System

NASA Selects Participating Scientists to Join ESA’s Hera Mission

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.

Posted June 25, 2024