Asteroids

Asteroids
Goddard Space Flight Center
Lucy
Missions
NASA Centers & Facilities
NASA Directorates
Planetary Science
Planetary Science Division
Science & Research
Science Mission Directorate
The Solar System
Trojan Asteroids
Even small asteroids lead complex lives. During its flyby of the asteroid Donaldjohanson last year, NASA’s Lucy spacecraft revealed the asteroid to be a wobbly, peanut-shaped body that has undergone a lot of activity in its relatively short history.
Posted June 18, 2026
Psyche Mission
Asteroids
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Mars
Psyche Asteroid
NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. This flyby used a gravity assist from Mars to provide a critical boost in speed and to adjust the spacecraft’s orbital plane without using any onboard propellant, sending it on its way toward […]
Posted May 19, 2026
Asteroids
Bennu
These X-ray computed tomography (XCT) scans released on March 17, 2026, give us a glimpse inside asteroid Bennu. They show the most common types of crack networks observed in Bennu samples; these networks solved a mystery that baffled NASA for years.
Posted March 17, 2026
Asteroids
Astromaterials
Bennu
Goddard Space Flight Center
Johnson Space Center
OSIRIS-REx (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer)
Planetary Science
Planetary Science Division
In one of the biggest surprises of NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission, its target asteroid, Bennu, turned out to be a jagged, rugged world covered in large boulders, with few of the smooth patches of sandy or pebbly material scientists had expected based on observations with Earth-based instruments.
Posted March 17, 2026
DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test)
Asteroids
Astronomy
Didymos & Dimorphos
Planetary Defense
Planetary Defense Coordination Office
Potentially Hazardous Asteroid (PHA)
New research reveals that when NASA’s DART (Double Asteroid Redirection Test) spacecraft intentionally impacted the asteroid moonlet Dimorphos in September 2022, it didn’t just change the motion of Dimorphos around its larger companion, Didymos; the crash also shifted the orbit of both asteroids around the Sun.
Posted March 6, 2026
Asteroids
Goddard Space Flight Center
Lucy
Missions
NASA Centers & Facilities
NASA Directorates
Planetary Science Division
Science Mission Directorate
The Solar System
Trojan Asteroids
The IAU (International Astronomical Union), a global naming authority for celestial objects, has approved official names for features on Donaldjohanson, an asteroid NASA’s Lucy spacecraft visited on April 20.
Posted September 16, 2025
Asteroids
Lucy
NASA’s Lucy spacecraft took this image of the main belt asteroid Donaldjohanson during its flyby on April 20, 2025, showing the elongated contact binary (an object formed when two smaller bodies collide). This was Lucy’s second flyby in the spacecraft’s 12-year mission.  Launched on Oct. 16, 2021, Lucy is the first space mission sent to […]
Posted April 23, 2025
Asteroids
Goddard Space Flight Center
Jupiter
Lucy
Planetary Science Division
Science Mission Directorate
The Solar System
Trojan Asteroids
Uncategorized
NASA has selected eight participating scientists to join its Lucy mission to the Jupiter Trojan asteroids.
Posted February 27, 2025
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