Space news stories

It sounds like something out of a sci-fi movie, but it’s a wild possibility scientists are actually exploring: how to fit a space station inside an asteroid.

The Near Earth Object Coordination Centre has upped the risk level for one of the 19,563 asteroids and 107 comets listed as passing through the Earth’s neighbourhood.

The heavy bombardment of terrestrial planets by asteroids from space has contributed to the formation of the early evolved crust on Earth that later gave rise to continents.

Scientists at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias developed and applied an image processing technique designed to draw out the unseen light in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field.

New York-based company Honeybee Robotics has teemed up with the University of Central Florida (UFC) to develop a steam-powered robotic spacecraft.

Before 290m years ago, the planet suffered an asteroid strike about once every 3m years, but since then the rate has risen to once nearly every 1m years.

Apophis 99942 is expected to come within 37,600km of the Earth, just a tenth of the distance between our planet and the moon, in 2029.

As levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide rise and warm the globe, Antarctica’s ice will become more vulnerable to cycles on an astronomical scale, particularly the tilt of our planet is as it spins around its axis.

The first direct evidence of white dwarf stars solidifying into crystals has been discovered by astronomers at the University of Warwick, and our skies are filled with them.

Rapid shifts in the Earth’s north magnetic pole are forcing researchers to make an unprecedented early update to a model that helps navigation by ships, planes and submarines in the Arctic, scientists said.

A smash-up in the asteroid belt may have turned a previously calm and quiet space rock into a splashier kind of celestial object.

‘Awesome’ technology could be used to explore ‘anywhere there is water and sufficiently low gravity’.

The asteroid blasted a nearly mile-high tsunami through the Gulf of Mexico that caused chaos throughout the world’s oceans, new research finds.

“If the Tunguska object was a member of a Beta Taurid stream … then the last week of June 2019 will be the next occasion with a high probability for Tunguska-like collisions or near misses.”

Chang’e 4 will perform a variety of science work over the coming months, potentially helping scientists better understand the structure, formation and evolution of Earth’s natural satellite.