Asteroid

NASA and the European Space Agency are teaming up for an ambitious mission to use spacecraft to deflect an asteroid.

Researchers and engineers from the two agencies are meeting in Rome next week to discuss an idea they believe is a viable method to protect our planet, according to BGNES.

Japan's Hayabusa2 probe began descending on July 10 for its final touchdown on a distant asteroid, hoping to collect samples that could shed light on the evolution of the solar system.

After 10 years, an asteroid called Apophis, with a diameter of 340 meters, will approach 31,000 kilometers from Earth, Sabah reported.
 
Although scientists are confident the asteroid will not hit the Earth, some have already begun to panic because the expected date of the asteroid is 13 April 2029, which is Friday 13th.

NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft landed on asteroid Bennu last week, and already it's found water on the minor planet, reported Geek.com

Early data from the Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer (OSIRIS-REx) mission revealed water locked inside Bennu.

AFP - A Japanese probe landed a new observation robot on an asteroid on Wednesday as it pursues a mission to shed light on the origins of the solar system.

The French-German Mobile Asteroid Surface Scout, or MASCOT, launched from the Hayabusa2 probe, landed safely on Ryugu and was in contact with its team, the lander's official Twitter account said.

A pair of robot rovers have landed on an asteroid and begun a survey, Japan's space agency said Saturday, as it conducts a mission aiming to shed light on the origins of the solar system.

The rover mission marks the world's first moving, robotic observation of an asteroid surface, according to the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).

Two years after launching from Florida, a NASA spacecraft is closing in on an ancient asteroid, Bennu, for a sample of space dust that could reveal clues to the start of life in the solar system.

The spacecraft, OSIRIS-REx, has even snapped its first, blurry pic of the cosmic body, which is about the size of a small mountain, about 500 yards (meters) in diameter.

An asteroid that visited us from interstellar space is one of the most elongated cosmic objects known to science, a study has shown, reported BBC.

Discovered on 19 October, the object's speed and trajectory strongly suggested it originated in a planetary system around another star.

Earth’s been hiding a little secret from its partner, the moon. Turns out the Earth has had a “mini-moon” on the side for over a century, and even though the relationship has been exposed, the partnership is likely to continue for centuries to come. This newly discovered moon is smaller than our moon and goes around the Earth astonishingly irregularly, but still, two is quite better than one.