Space news stories

Nasa has warned about the dangers of asteroids in the future – but not this one.

Astronomers are now closely monitoring the upcoming Beta Taurids shower after data analysis showed that this year’s event will bring the swarm of meteors closest to Earth.

Proto-humans’ decision to start walking on two legs is what took us from living in the trees to designing space rockets and it may all have started with a fantastical series of events.

Earth will approach within 30,000,000 km of the centre of the Taurid swarm this summer, the closest such encounter since 1975.

This natural glass, found across thousands of square kilometers in western Egypt, is thought to have originated from one of two events: either a meteorite impact on the surface of Earth or an airburst.

In 5 billion years, the sun will run out of fuel and expand. A more immediate threat is a global warming apocalypse. Moving the Earth to a wider orbit could be a solution, and it is possible in theory.

A researcher has solved a 100-year-old riddle by discovering that glass found in the Egyptian desert was created by a meteorite impact. These findings have implications for understanding the threat posed by asteroids.

Fictional crash tests the ways that disaster response and space agencies would deal with such a natural disaster.

The Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) – NASA’s first mission to demonstrate a planetary defense technique – will get one chance to hit its target, the small moonlet in the binary asteroid system Didymos.

While space agencies simulate an asteroid impact this week at the 2019 Planetary Defense Conference, there’s a real asteroid they’re monitoring that will make a close appearance in just 10 years.

‘Tabletop exercise’ will ensure US government is ready to respond to any real asteroids that could be on their way to destroy us.

In the first week of April, a Japanese spacecraft blasted a small crater into an asteroid more than 180 million miles from Earth — and now we’ve finally got the first images of its explosive handy work.

If a collision-course NEO was identified, it can at least be said that a proposed nuclear response would be very likely to violate international law.

Scientists said they might have detected the first known seismic tremor on Mars in a discovery that could shed light on the ancient origins of Earth’s neighbour.

Researchers calculate that an asteroid from beyond our solar system burned up in the atmosphere in 2014.